


Rexque Futurus

by bunn



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ancient Character in Modern Era, Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), Bees, Britain's Darkest Hour, Dragons, Gen, Giant monsters, Glastonbury, Humour, London in Ruins, Magic, Modern Era, Mythology - Freeform, Original Character(s), Original Characters - Freeform, Oxford, Post-Canon, Saxon Spells, Sorcerers, Spells & Enchantments, Wales
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21562900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: The Once and Future King sleeps in the hills, waiting to return in Britain’s hour of greatest need. This much we know. Arthur’s name echoes down to us out of the Dark Ages. But why? When that terrible hour finally comes, what will happen?My theory involves an ancient Volvo, a lot of bees, Arthur in pyjamas from Marks and Spencer, a random dog, some very old Anglo-Saxon magic, doom, death and the serpent-spawn of a dark god.  [Thanks to thesmallhobbit for beta-reading & encouragement]
Comments: 238
Kudos: 134





	1. Hic iacet Arthurus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sally_maria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sally_maria/gifts).



> I started writing this long, long ago, when Sally_maria posted on LiveJournal about her disappointment at the final episode of BBC Merlin, feeling (if I remember rightly after all these years), that Arthur had died before ever realising his full potential, and that he and Merlin should have had adventures where they could recognise one another's strengths and fight with sword and magic together. 
> 
> I suggested that perhaps there should be a story in which Arthur returned to show the kingly qualities he never quite managed consistently in the series, and began to write one. So this is not quite BBC Merlin's Arthur, although it is very definitely their Merlin. 
> 
> I was publishing chapters on a weekly basis, hoping to get the last chapters sorted in time to post them without a delay, but chapter 12 took me way longer than I thought it would. I am still actively working on this story and it will have an ending.

Arthur sleeps  
in the green isle  
under the skin of the world 

As he lies quiet  
The world's dreams shape him   
into more than he ever was

Mould the warlord who defied  
the ending of his world 

Crown him with a distant hope  
Future king of ten thousand tales

* * *

Red sunrise breaking across a wide land wreathed in mist. Standing high above the lowlands, a single hill topped by a tower, washed golden by the morning light. On the grassy hill below the tower, a grey statue lies, arms folded, all in mail. A work of art, perhaps set upon the grave of some great lord. The warm dawn light falls on the figure’s calm face and colours it almost to the shade of living flesh. 

And then the eyelids flutter... 

***

A feeling of vague discomfort, of having lain too long in one position. Then a glimmer of light, the sound of distant birdsong. A hint of warmth from the sun on his face. He shifted, felt the familiar pain, sharp where the sword had bitten deep. 

It felt... better. Still there, but a little distant, as though it was an enemy who had retreated from the attack. He remembered it all-encompassing, a red ragged darkness that made it hard to move, hard to think, a hole in the world through which his life ran down into darkness. Now, it was almost bearable. 

He opened his eyes. He was outdoors, lying flat on something cold and hard -- a great stone, slightly hollowed in the middle. All around was the short green grass of an open hillside. With an effort, he hauled himself up to a sitting position. Movement was exhausting, and he had to pause, while his head swam and red dots burst across his vision. 

As he moved, something that might once have been a very good chainmail shirt fell and crumbled into reddish dust. He brushed at it ineffectually, and the woollen tunic that had lain below the mail tore and shredded away into nothing. Underneath, his skin was grey with dust from the disintegrating fabric. There was a great scar where the wound had been, red and crusted along the edges, but it had been stitched shut, and it was starting to wrinkle as wounds did when they were healing. Good. 

He was alone on the hillside. Above him, the hill rose in a green curve across the blue sky. Below, the land was hidden by a white sheet of mist, glowing in the light of the low sun. It felt like early morning, and he shivered a little, feeling the stone under his hand wet with dew. In the distance, he could hear a sheep bleating and overhead, there was a lark singing its joy at the opening of the day. The name of the place came into his mind.

“Avalon.” 

“Yes” said a voice from behind him. “Avalon. That was one of its names, once. You’d remember that, I suppose. And what else do you remember?. ” 

A small person climbed onto the stone slab, and sat squatting next to him. He was only about four feet tall, with a huge nose, and between the large pointed ears, a very lived-in face; mobile and expressive with brown leathery skin etched with many wrinkles. The lines on that face told of laughter, but there was something else there too, sorrow, and perhaps even a hint of cruelty. He did not look trustworthy. 

“You’re ... you’re a bucca. I thought you were a fairy story.”

“ _The_ Bucca, if you will,” said the small person, clearly a little offended. “ Or the Puck, they call me now. And you are a fine one to be talking to anyone about fairy stories, King Arthur Pendragon.” 

“What do you want?” he said, suspicious. Creatures like this had to be treated with great caution. At best they were capricious and strange; at worst, terribly dangerous. He looked around for his sword, but it was nowhere to be seen. Not that a sword was much use against magic, but it was better than no sword. 

“Well!” said the Puck, “I reckon you made better company when you were asleep!” He wiggled his bare hairy feet, hopped down from the rock and rummaged in a leather bag. “Still, it must be hard to wake here beyond the world. It’s true, there were some of us that couldn’t abide salt, or running water or cold iron, or the sound of bells, and you can’t be too careful of that sort. But I’m Puck! Here’s bread, and here’s salt. Eat with me, that’ll show you the sort of person _I_ am.”

He pulled apart two small loaves and scattered them with salt. The yeasty smell of them on the morning air was delicious. 

“I don’t think so.” Arthur deliberately leant back, away from the Puck and his bread. “They say you should never eat or drink anything that a fairy offers you. That’s how they trap you inside the hills, and when you finally go home it’s hundreds of years later.”

Puck looked at him with bright blue eyes over the edge of his bread, his bristly eyebrows raised. “I’ve no need to trap you, Arthur Pendragon. And if I did, I’d not use salt. Salt carries no enchantments, you should remember that — for all that most folk nowadays have forgotten it.”

Arthur considered, and took the bread. It tasted wonderful. He felt amazingly hungry. When had he last eaten? Last night? His wound had hurt too much to think of food. 

“Where _is_ everyone?”

“Ah well,” said the Puck and he looked very sad. “They went away. All the People of the Hills are gone, ‘cept for me. They took you and they stitched you up and made all sound. And then they laid you on the stone, and and they bound you here safe in time and place. But now they’re gone. They laid it on me to stay and watch and wait, in case the time came at last for you to wake, and then they went away. “

“I meant _my_ people. My knights. Guinevere. Merlin. Merlin brought me here, he must be about somewhere?” He looked around wildly at the green grass, the sky, the mist. “

“Gone.” said Puck. “Half-legend, now. Names blowing in the mist they are. Like you. _Merlin,_ now there’s a name out of legend. I do remember him, I do, calling green lightning from the sky as the Wild Hunt ran from West to East and all wise creatures hid themselves, and me alongside them. But that was long ago. Haven’t seen him in a long time.” 

Arthur could remember Merlin calling lightning from the sky too. The memory was not a reassuring one. He decided to ignore it. 

“What do you mean? How long?”

Puck looked at him sidelong, and changed the subject. “You’ll be wanting clothes, I’m thinking. Those old things, shredding apart, aren’t they? They weren’t too good on the practicalities, the People of the Hills. They caught you out of time, but they they never thought you’d need something to wear. Now, me, I’m the practical type. Give me lambswool to spin or a barn to sweep and you won’t see the job done better anywhere from here to the Pennines. You’ll be wanting a wash too, all dusty as you are. There’s a spring down here behind this bush, come.”

The water in the small bright pool was clear, and bitterly cold. Arthur, cautious not to twist and pull at his wound, knelt and dipped his head. The icy water cascaded across his shoulders, carrying away the dusty remains of his shirt, and there was no doubt at all now that he was nothing but wide awake, and still here.

***

“You’re telling me that everyone I ever knew is dead?” Arthur was clean and dressed in clothes of fine-spun lambswool that Puck had brought him, and was also utterly taken aback. 

“Don’t know, do I? I’m still here, same as I was when you was crowned a king, and long before it too. But human beings... they don’t last like I do, not as a rule.” 

“That can’t be true. These stitches aren’t even healed yet.” 

“No way to let things heal, when you were caught out of time. But you have slept an age of the world away, believe me. I was here, whiles and whiles.”

“But _why_? Why heal me and then make me sleep until everything’s changed? Why not just let me die? What did I ever do to the Sidhe, that you’d do this to me?” 

Puck was looking worried. “You were supposed to sleep in the Hills, until you returned again to save the land in its hour of greatest need. Nobody said you’d be upset about it.”

“Upset!” Arthur took a deep breath, and began again, in a deliberately calm voice. “Well then, what is this ‘greatest need’? How can I do anything about it? There’s only one of me.”

“I don’t know,” said Puck. Deep wrinkles sat on his leathery forehead. “When King Arthur awakes at last, then the hour of greatest need is at hand. I thought you’d know all about it. It’s your destiny, or so I was told. I was just supposed to help you on your way.”

“Can’t you help me get home to my own time instead?” Arthur asked, desperately, “You’re a Sidhe, you have magic, don’t you?” 

Puck looked indignant. “I’m not Sidhe. No god nor spirit nor sorcerer, am I. I’m just one of the Old Things of the land. And I don’t know how to send you back through time to Camelot, not to stay and live there.

“I could let you See and Hear the past. But you don’t want that, do you? You want to go back altogether, your living self, and that I can’t do. I could take away your Doubt and Fear, but I’m thinking you’ll need the strength of both of those with the task that’s ahead of you. And when it comes to kings and destinies? I don’t know where to begin with that. That’s work for gods, that is, and I was never one of those gentry, not even in the beginning. ”

“Right.” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, grappling with the situation. The wound in his side ached, and the physical ache bled into the hollow feeling of loss. “I have no idea what I’m doing here. My world is gone. I can’t go home. I shall just have to find someone who does know what this ‘greatest need’ is and... and just go on from there. It appears that is all that I _can_ do. Do you know where my sword has got to? If I’m going out to face the greatest threat the land has ever known, I’m going to need it.” 

“It was in the keeping of the Lady of the Lake,” Puck said. “Steel, see? It couldn’t come up into Avalon Isle. T’would rust away like your coat of rings. But where it is now I can’t tell you. I’ve not seen the Lady for many years. She may have gone away with the People of the Hills, perhaps.” 

“The Lady of the Lake... the lake that lies around the isle of Avalon? Well, surely my sword can’t be far from here, if it’s in the lake. ” 

“Ah, but there’s no lake any more. They drained the Levels...” Puck waved vaguely at the sea of mist beneath them, which was starting to thin under the morning suns, revealing hedges and fields grey with dew. “I heard she went away West, somewhere. I don’t know whether she took the sword with her. ” 

“So. No sword, no armour, no friends and no idea who the enemy is, if there is one... It almost seems like someone is _trying_ to make this difficult. I’d best get started, then. It can’t be more than a day’s walk to Camelot.”

Puck shook his head gently. “I don’t think they set much weight by Camelot any more, though it’s long and long since I was last there. You’ll be wanting Bristol, maybe, or London town. But the town under hill is just down there, at the foot of the hill. They call it Glastonbury now. ” 

“Where?” Arthur said, straining his eyes westward. The land beyond the hill seemed strangely hazy and vague, even though the mist had gone. 

“I’ll have to let you out of the Hills,” Puck said. He hesitated. “You’re sure you want to go off right away? That hole in your side’s still hurting, from the look of it. You could stay a little while maybe? T’will be strange here without you after all this time, for all that you’ve not had much to say till today.”

“If I’ve been called back from death for... whatever it is, it would seem rude to risk being late” Arthur said grimly. 

Puck bowed formally, so low that his head almost brushed the ground. Then he took three fresh leaves from his pocket, and holding the small things delicately in his brown hand, he made a strange, extravagant gesture, as if he were drawing a doorway in the air. Then he gestured to Arthur to walk through the imaginary door. 

There was nothing there that Arthur could see, but he walked forwards anyway, and as he walked the world changed. There was a different scent on the air, and the fields down at the bottom of the hill shimmered and came into focus, the lush green of fields and hedges at midsummer under a clear blue morning sky. 

There was a town there, too - no a city, a huge city with many large buildings, all with fine roofs of red or gray tiles stretching off into the distance. You could hear it humming with noise; voices, the sound of carts grinding along the roads, and yet it looked strangely empty too. 

Arthur stared at it for a moment before he realised what was so odd about it. For all the size and obvious importance of the place, there was no smoke hanging over it, and unlike any town he had ever seen, there was no distinctive smell of woodsmoke or horse dung. It was as if the people of Glastonbury lived without food or waste. There was no castle visible within the town, but there were several vast roofs like palaces. No town walls either. 

Arthur blinked at it. “This place does not look to be prepared for attack. Unless the enemy is coming with dragons, I suppose. I see they don’t use thatch: perhaps they fear attack with fire from the sky.” 

He looked back at Puck to see if he had anything more to say, but he was nowhere to be seen. Where the Old Thing had stood, a paved path ran up the hill to a tower on the hilltop. The great stone on which he had woken was gone too, and in its place lay a couple of broken boulders, and an ugly bench of some rough stone. 

Down on the lower slopes of the hill, he could see two people making their way up the hill, with a black and white dog running ahead of them. They were oddly dressed in tight, bright clothes , but they seemed to be unarmed. That, along with the lack of town walls might be a hopeful sign. Perhaps this land was at peace, and the enemy was still far away. 

Well, there was only one way to find out. He put his hand to his side, where his sword should have been, and found it empty. No point worrying about that until he could do something about it. He set off down the grey-dewed hill. 

****

The brightly-dressed people with the dog spoke some language that he had never heard before. It sounded a little like the language of the Saxons, but it flowed and jumbled incomprehensibly. He could pick out a few words that seemed half-familiar, but they were distorted and their meaning was unclear.

“Never mind,” he said to them, frustrated, and went on, heading for the town. 

The town was certainly not expecting attack. There were no guards, no gates: nobody stopped him and asked his business as a stranger to the place. The streets, paved with some dark smooth substance, were oddly empty. No chickens or pigs or dogs wandered between the houses: there were no water-carriers, no-one out in the early morning to milk the cow or deliver the daily bread. Only from time to time, a great horseless cart would swoop quietly along the road at the speed of a cantering horse, but quieter. The first time it happened he jumped nervously, but soon he was used to them: they were everywhere. 

The other thing that was everywhere was writing. Everywhere there were signs, triangular or rectangular, arrows and circles, brightly coloured things filled with strange words in that not-quite Saxon tongue. 

What kind of town was visited by so many people who were able to read and write, that it was worth putting up signs, yet needed no guards? The signs must be for visitors, for the residents would surely not need signs to tell them about their own home. 

Arthur frowned at them, but they told him nothing of his task or of his enemy. He went on. 

***

Merlin had come into the library to use the Internet. He had to admit the system was handy, but he just couldn’t get comfortable with it enough to want it about himself all the time. The idea of constant contact, of being deluged with news, of never being alone... well, it was amazing, but you probably had to be born to it to find it comfortable. 

He checked for messages: nothing much new there. He dipped briefly into the BBC news website. There were human tragedies and personal dramas, the usual political wrangling and a story about the seemingly-endless war in the Middle East, but there was nothing major, nothing that had a magical air to it. All calm then. 

He had just begun to browse the British Beekeepers Association forum when he was interrupted. 

“‘Scuse me, but I don’t suppose you speak Norwegian do you?” The bushy-haired, woolly-jumpered librarian was clutching her long string of turquoise beads anxiously. 

“Norwegian?” Merlin raised his eyebrows dauntingly and gave her his best grumpy old man stare. He had discovered long ago that this was often enough to stop people fussing around him. Sadly on this occasion the librarian seemed too flustered to notice. 

“Well, we think Norwegian. It might be Latvian. Or somebody said it sounded like Welsh,” she said. “There’s this man who’s come in to the Town Hall and he seems to have something on his mind, but nobody can work out what language he’s speaking. He doesn’t seem to have any English at all - or German, Polish, or Romanian, they’ve already tried those, apparently. I remembered when you asked about how to make the keyboard do the a with the little ring on top, you said you had friends in Scandinavia? So I just thought I’d ask if you might be able to do a little translating?” She looked hopeful and determined. 

“Hm. I do speak a little Norwegian, as it happens. And Latvian too.“ This was quite true, although his Norwegian was several hundred years out of date and would probably sound rather odd to any modern Norwegian tourist. His Latvian had been picked up only sixty-odd years ago though, so should be in pretty good shape. 

“Would you mind terribly popping down to the Town Hall and just — see if you can have a word? Try to see what he wants? Only the town hall clerk is getting rather worried. He’s really ever so polite, apparently. But he just won’t go away! I can reserve the computer for you, so it’s free when you get back...?” 

“Oh, all right then,” Merlin said ungraciously. He pulled his woolly hat down over his ears, picked up his bag and pulled his shabby coat around him, and headed off, down the High Street in the morning sun, past pleasant little cafes just opening for morning coffee, past the small shops with quirky names like the Magickal Box and the Wobbly Broomstick. 

Merlin loved those shops. There was only as much magic there as in a handful of dried leaves, but still, there they were; cheerful and unashamed, with their charms and crystals on display for the whole world to see, customers bustling in and out, peaceful and prosperous as if magic was as ordinary and wholesome as a loaf of bread. They always cheered him up. 

He was smiling by the time he got to the Town Hall. He walked up the steep stone steps and peered in. Yes, there in the lobby was the Town Clerk, wearing a strained smile and standing in a pose that suggested extremely polite yet uncomprehending listening, while a blond man who was standing with his back to Merlin bent over her, talking earnestly. 

There was something about the way he stood that looked familiar, somehow. Familiar in that way that something you’ve almost forgotten can be utterly everyday, and strange at the same time. That voice, clipped and authoritative. And the language, the language was... Merlin stepped forward through the open door, and the blond man turned his head. 

Merlin dropped his bag on the floor in shock. 

“Arthur” he said, in his first language, the one he hadn’t spoken for time out of mind. “Oh _no_ . What are _you_ doing here?”

Arthur narrowed his eyes against the light coming through the open door, frowning at the strip of face visible between beard and woolly hat. 

“Do I know you?”

Merlin opened his mouth wordlessly and then closed it again. 

“Yes.” he said finally. “It’s me. Merlin.”

Arthur gave him a long, doubtful look, squinted at him, and finally, nodded. “Right. This is some sort of magical disguise, is it?” He waved vaguely at Merlin’s face. 

“What? No, it’s just a beard. And a hat.” 

“Oh good!” said the Town Clerk, in the new language that suddenly sounded strange and harsh to Merlin’s ear. “You know each other. Well, I’ll just... let me know if there’s anything I can help with...” she said as she vanished with the surprising speed of the practiced bureaucrat. 

“Now where has she gone? “ Arthur asked half to himself “Not that it matters, she was no use, I don’t know why those Romans sent me in here.”

“...Romans?” Merlin had imagined Arthur’s return many times over the long centuries. He’d never imagined being this confused when it happened though. 

“They spoke pretty strange Latin. But I’m sure they said they were Romans. I thought the Romans had all gone away years ago. ”

Light dawned. “I think they may have been Romanians,” Merlin suggested. 

Arthur looked baffled by this distinction. Merlin considered the problem of explaining the development of post-Roman successor states in central Europe, and quailed. And anyway, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to remember the details without Wikipedia. Maybe those mobile internet thingies were a good idea after all. 

"You know what I need?” Arthur said. “I need a drink.”

***

The bar of the White Hart was empty at this time of day. The long low room with its small misty-paned windows and dark wooden tables seemed gloomy after the bright sunshine, and the few customers were drinking coffee at tables outside. Nobody was likely to interrupt them here. 

The barman raised an eyebrow at the demand for two pints before ten in the morning. Merlin was not in a mood to discuss it. He paid for the drinks with the credit card, remembering afterwards to add some extra money to his balance. Credit cards had made things so much easier. All you had to do was magically adjust a number, and there was all the beer money you might need. He didn’t really understand it, but you didn’t need to, to just make it work. 

“Merlin,” Arthur said unexpectedly as Merlin put the glass in front of him. 

“What?”

“Oh, just testing... that you’re really you. That beard is beyond ridiculous, you do know that, don’t you?”

“It’s a great disguise,” Merlin told him. “Nobody looks at you. They only look at the beard and the hat and the white hair, and they think ‘oh, just an old man’ and they ignore you. That can be really handy.” 

“You’re living in hiding?”

“Well, not really. Not as such. But it gets complicated when people know you’re an immortal sorcerer. It’s just easier this way,” 

“Still lying, then?”

“Why break a winning streak?” Merlin said lightly, with distant memories of old tensions. 

“Immortal sorcerer. Sounds so unlikely.” Arthur stared darkly at his beer. 

“Well, I can’t say it didn’t come as a surprise to me too. Well, the sorcerer bit I knew about of course, but the immortal bit I really wasn’t expecting at all, it just sort of happened...” Merlin caught himself gabbling; something that he had no longer thought he could do, and stopped himself with an effort.

“I don’t know if I _am_ immortal. All I know is that I haven’t died yet.” 

“This beer has bubbles in it,” Arthur said, tasting it. 

“Yes.” Merlin refused to be distracted. “Arthur - not that it’s not good to see you again...but why are you here now? I thought you were supposed to return in Albion’s time of greatest need.”

“So I’m told,” Arthur said, frowning. “But you don’t think this is it?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like it. Everything’s so...prosperous. Comfortable even. People don’t starve, there haven’t been any major plagues for ages. Magic is legal.” 

Arthur’s eyebrows went up at that, and Merlin hastily qualified his statement. “Oh, I don’t mean it’s a land of sorcerers. They’ve... sort of forgotten how magic works and there aren’t many people born with much talent. Most of them don’t believe in it. There’d probably be panic if they actually saw sorcery and knew what it was. But it’s not _illegal_.” 

He sipped his beer and looked at Arthur, that sharp, mobile face, improbably here at last. 

“There were times... quite a few times, actually... when I thought to myself; surely this is it. Surely this time, he’ll come back. When Camelot fell at last. When the Saxons came swarming in and our cities died and our people were thrown back to the hills to scratch a living out on the heather... When the Vikings were raiding all along the coasts, burning and taking slaves. When the Normans invaded - that was bad. That was really bad, for a while. I was so sure you’d come back then, I went and camped by the lake for a while. Or for the Wars of the Roses, when they tore each other to shreds all across the land until there was almost nothing left....

“A king who knew how to rule would have made such a difference then. Or during the Civil War... So I came back to Avalon and I waited and watched, but there was _nothing_.” 

“I didn’t get to _choose_ , Merlin.” Arthur said. “I wasn’t lying there thinking, hmm, this bit looks tricky, I think I’ll give that a miss.”

Merlin glared at him irritably. “Glad to hear it. So, you didn’t get to watch? History, I mean. I wondered if you would. Thought you might get a clearer view of it than me, living inside it.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I arrived at the lake of Avalon yesterday, with you. Dying, or dead, I’m told. I’ve still got a whacking great hole in my side.”

Merlin was alarmed “Seriously? How bad is it?”

“Healing,” Arthur said tersely. “Someone stitched it, I don’t remember that either. Doesn’t look a week old. Yet apparently, everyone and everything is gone... Hard to take in. How long was it, really?” 

“About fifteen hundred years,” Merlin told him. 

Arthur’s eyes widened, “Fifteen HUNDRED? No wonder their clothes and ... and everything is so different.” He looked Merlin squarely in the face as if confronting an unpalatable truth and took a long swig of his beer. “They’re all Saxons, aren’t they?” 

“Well, not exactly. They all speak English now - it’s a sort of dialect of the language the Saxons that we knew used to speak, but it’s sort of ...changed. Quite a lot. But the people - the people themselves are a mix. There are people here whose families have lived around here through fifteen hundred years, even though they don’t know it themselves. And there are people who came in as conquerors, and people fleeing persecution, and they’ve all married and settled down - same as the Romans did, I suppose. They’re all muddled up together now.”

“Hm,” Arthur said, thinking. Merlin wondered if he would accept this, or if he would dismiss the invaders as still intrinsically alien. He tried to think how he might have felt about it, if he hadn’t lived with them all this time. How would he, Merlin, feel, if he had come back to discover Camelot fallen and his land full of strangers? He wasn’t sure that he could have forgiven it. But Arthur, it seemed, was able to make the adjustment. 

“Hmm. That’s something, anyway, if our people are still here. I’d hate to think I’m destined to fight to save a bunch of Saxons who’d wiped my own people out. But I can’t see how I am supposed to achieve anything now. These people don’t know me, I don’t know them. We don’t even speak the same language. Surely they must have their own knights and their own king? I don’t even have a sword.” His voice dropped in doubt.

“Well, they ... sort of have knights. And they have a queen. Not like you though. Look, it’s ...complicated.”

“I’ll bet.” 

“Maybe that’s the reason?” Merlin wondered. 

“What reason?” 

“The reason that nothing’s happening yet. On the hour of greatest need thing. Maybe you get some time to learn the language and get to know the lie of the land before ... whatever it is happens.” 

Arthur’s eyes narrowed, thoughtfully. “Perhaps. And maybe there’s another weapon I need to know how to use. ”

“Weapon?” Merlin looked blankly at him. 

“You need to tell me exactly what you can do with sorcery, Merlin. It looks like that’s the only advantage that I’ve got.” Then Arthur suddenly looked unsure, and added, slowly, “If you do want to help me, that is.”

“What do you mean?”

Arthur gave him a long, level look. Merlin rubbed his white beard self-consciously. 

“I’ve been gone for, well, more time than I can imagine, or so you tell me. You certainly look like it’s been a very long time. You’ve lived after Camelot much longer than you ever lived in it. Even back then, you didn’t tell me anything about the magic: nothing more than you had to, even at the end.”

“Well, yes, but...” Merlin said, but Arthur interrupted him. 

“Look, when you first turned up at that hall place and saw me, you weren’t pleased. I understand. It was a long time ago for you. I’ve let you down.” 

“Oh, not really,” Merlin began, uncomfortably.

Arthur interrupted him. “I did. I made a lot of assumptions that have turned out to be pretty stupid. I didn’t ask questions that needed to be asked. You risked everything, even though I wasn’t someone you could trust. For some utterly baffling reason you stuck by me anyway, but no sane person could have blamed you if you hadn’t. So. I need to know where your loyalties lie now. If I can’t rely on you any more, just tell me.”

Merlin looked at him, this impossibly young man from the impossibly distant past. His friend; his king. Preparing to stand alone against who knew what threat, without even magic to help him. Merlin had forgotten how it was to know exactly where his loyalties lay. Forgotten that sometimes things could be so uncomplicated. 

“Well?” Arthur said, impatient, and Merlin realised he had not spoken aloud. 

“Arthur, you are still an idiot,” Merlin told him with deep affection. “I’ve waited fifteen hundred years for you! Of course you can rely on me. Something awful—even more awful than all of that stuff I just mentioned—is about to happen. If you’d seen the wars I’ve seen, you’d know why I’m not too happy about that. Who would be? But of course I have to help you. 

“I’ve seen kings and queens come and go, and there wasn’t one of them that was a match for you. I know you’ve never leave a war raging and people dying if you had any choice about it. You would never let anyone down.

“And apart from all of that, you are my friend, and there is no way I’m letting you walk out of here on your own.”

Arthur smiled. “Good,” he said “Because I didn’t have a clue what to do without you. But still, I had to ask. You’d better start teaching me this weird Anglish language.”

“English”

“Whatever it’s called.” 


	2. Secrecy and Sorcery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is not a fan of magic, but he'll take his weapons where he can.

Merlin’s house looked like an afterthought, tucked between two larger buildings and leaning slightly on the house next to it. But even so, it had several rooms, glass windows, and plumbing that a Roman would have been proud of. 

Before the house there was a wilderness of bright flowers sprawling across the fences and up the walls, buzzing with bees from the battered row of hives that stood behind the hedge at the bottom of the garden. The sunny spot behind the house was adorned with a random scattering of ill-assorted chairs made of a substance that Arthur had just learned was called plastic. 

He lowered himself into the least paint-speckled of the chairs with a relieved grunt. They had only walked half a mile or so, but his wound was aching fiercely after the effort, and he held his hand over it for a moment to reassure himself that he was fine, really. It was just another minor injury now. He had bigger problems. 

“Let me have a look at that,” Merlin said, kneeling to lift the tunic that hid the wound. 

“It’s all right,” Arthur said impatiently, and then, resolutely making an effort to be civil, to treat this odd new Merlin as if he was the Merlin that he had known, but also as if magic was entirely usual and nothing to be concerned about, “Can you do anything to help it?” 

“I don’t know,” Merlin inspected the long red wound, which was puckered with tiny stitches and seeping a little. Then he looked up, his face cautious, perhaps, Arthur thought, even a little cunning. “Do you want me to try?” 

“You couldn’t help it before. It’s the same wound.” 

“I’ve learned a few things since then, I hope. But it has been treated by the Sidhe. They had many strange powers, and yet after so long it is not healed... I can probably relieve the pain with magic. Shall I?”

Arthur took a deep breath. It was all a bit much. This new world, this odd, half-familiar Merlin, grief for all those he had left behind, some unnamed disaster ahead, and now magic on his own body. More magic, he supposed, since sleeping for fifteen hundred years was not exactly unmagical. But still, there was no direction to go but forward. 

“You used to use herbs,” he said, temporising.

“Ye-es,” Merlin said, “And I still do. But, well — there are many herbs that are effective treatments, but they are variable, and need careful preparation.”

“So do that then,” Arthur said impatiently. 

Merlin made a face. “The thing is though... they are more effective if you use magic to prepare them.” He looked around the garden for a moment, picked a long softly furry leaf that was growing near his knee, and waved it at Arthur. “Comfrey, for example. It has properties of its own, but magic helps it achieve far more than it could otherwise. But this alone will do nothing for a wound that is so clearly magical in nature. ”

“Really. There’s no getting away from the stuff, is there?” he said with distaste. 

“Not for me,” Merlin told him seriously, looking up at him. “And I think, not for this?”

“Mmmm. All right then, go ahead,” he said, feeling ungracious and awkward and wishing there was some other way out. 

Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Go on,” he said, and damn him, there was a smile there in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Say it properly.”

“All right! Merlin, kindly use your infernal sorcery and make it stop hurting.  _ Please _ .”

And Merlin muttered, and his eyes glowed gold in that unsettling manner, and the pain was less. 

  


***

Merlin had been pointing at things and naming them in English. If the enemy should turn out to be bees, pebbles, chairs or flowerpots, Arthur would at least be able to shout a warning. It was a start, anyway. They had agreed it was safest not to talk about magic in a language that other people were likely to understand though. 

“So. Sorcery,” Arthur said, firmly, feeling that he had started down this road so he might as well go right to the end and face whatever unpleasantness was hiding there. “What can you do?” 

Merlin looked uncomfortable. 

“You’re unusually quiet,” Arthur said and then wondered if it was true. Who knew what was normal for Merlin now?

“It’s... not easy. Talking about magic. You get into the habit of just. Um. None of the words seem ...right. ”

“Come on, Merlin. Tell me. Start at the beginning of the sentence and go on from there, that’s how these things work. I’ve seen you chucking lightning about. How long can you do that? What sort of an area can you cover?”

“It’s a lot easier if there’s thunder about already, “ Merlin admitted. “If there’s a storm, it’s just sort of...tapping into it and directing the power. Not.. not the same as supplying it yourself. So it would... would run on as long as I can hold a storm in place. A couple of hours, perhaps? I’ve never tried for longer than that. And I need to be able to see... what I’m trying to hit.”

“Right. That’s a start. Can you call a storm up as well?” 

“That’s what I did that... that time at Camlann. I called the storm to me as I came, and by the time I got there it was waiting for me. But it’s risky, when you work with weather on that scale. It can have a lot of side-effects. It didn’t rain for weeks, afterwards, and the winter that year was terrible. Months of snow, and then floods when it melted.”

“Floods? Was anyone hurt?” Arthur asked, automatically concerned, before he remembered that everyone who could possibly have been hurt was dead an impossibly long time ago. 

Merlin blinked and scratched his grey head. “Um... I can’t remember, to be honest. It wasn’t a terrible disaster, if that’s what you mean, but it was very muddy there for a while.”

“Go on then. Storms.”

“So... calling lightning is more effective than just hitting out with raw power. Doing that’s tiring, and also it’s not very... permanent. You can knock people out with it, but they don’t stay knocked for very long, if you see what I mean.”

“Whereas someone who gets hit by lightning stays down. I see,” Arthur said. “What about fire? I know you can light a fire by magic. Can you use that to fight? How far away could you do that?” 

“I can’t throw balls of fire out of nowhere, no. I’d burn my hands. But If there’s something to burn, then... yes. I can raise fire pretty much anywhere that I can see. Not so easy if it’s so far away it’s out of sight. You sort of need to know what you’re burning before you can get it to be that hot, and there are limitations on distance.”

Merlin scratched his nose. Arthur tried to look encouraging, and after a moment, Merlin went on. 

“I can see the path ahead, probably ten miles or more. So I could do that and then call a fire in the place I was looking at easily enough. But only if there’s something flammable: I can’t burn water, for example, or rock or...” Merlin stared about, clearly trying to think of something else that wouldn’t burn, then abandoned the train of thought to continue. Now he was talking, he seemed to be almost unable to stop. 

“I can shape smoke and mist. That’s a lot of fun. Smoke and mist and embers make all kinds of amazing mad shapes anyway, so it’s really easy to just nudge them into the shape you want, with just the least bit of suggestion. So I can shape a cloud-dragon, or an ember-dragon, although they can’t do much, just the shape can look pretty impressive. Or I could fill a fog with monsters. I mean, I haven’t actually tried that, but that seems like it could be a pretty effective thing if the enemy wasn’t expecting it. 

“I can call a wind. That’s probably the easiest way to just knock people out of the way or send them off in the wrong direction, I think, you only need to give the wind a little bit of encouragement and away it goes; whee! That doesn’t seem to be as major as calling a thunderstorm: it doesn’t affect the weather afterwards, or not that I’ve noticed, anyway. 

“I can lift things and freeze them in place without touching them. How hard that is and how long I can do it depends on how big the things are. Little things you could hold in your hand are easy, big heavy things that are moving fast are a lot harder. I can set things to do jobs on their own, as long as they aren’t too complicated. Brushes brushing, that sort of thing.”

“Useful if attacked by a particularly untidy enemy” Arthur said, straightfaced, and Merlin laughed. 

“I could make things do more complex jobs - weapons that fight on their own, for example. But I can’t do that quickly: that sort of spell needs a lot of preparation. If I made a sword to fight a person it would need to take account of what its opponent was doing, which is much harder than just making a brush sweep up dust. 

“I should think so. Don’t you need to understand swordplay to do that?” Arthur demanded. 

“I’m not  _ completely _ useless with a sword, you know,” Merlin told him, rolling his eyes. “And it’s a great advantage for a magical weapon that there’s nothing much for your opponent to hit. 

“Oh, and I can make illusions, of course. Change my face and form, call up a shape or make a picture in a bowl of water... When I was young, I used to change my whole self a lot, but that’s hard work to keep up for long, and also you get all the disadvantages. 

“So if you make yourself old, you find you have arthritis and are a bit deaf and terribly weak. You transform into a horse and it’s hard to think about anything but oats and hay and running. It gets harder the longer you stay that way too, which is bad because you have to say a release spell to get out of it, and saying a spell is hard enough when you are a horse anyway... 

“Illusion is much easier. I can’t run as fast as a horse, but if I do this...” and he waved a hand and momentarily there was a tall grey horse standing between the geraniums. It was wearing Merlin’s woolly hat.

The horse blinked at Arthur for a moment, and then Merlin reappeared, minus the hat. “...then nobody can tell the difference, unless it was someone with magic and they had a reason for looking at me particularly. And there aren’t many people with those sort of skills around any more. I can do that sort of thing without thinking about it, it’s like breathing really.” 

“Hang on, ” Arthur said quickly, before Merlin could continue. Now he had started talking about sorcery, there seemed every possibility that he would never again stop. “That hat. Was that a real hat, or a...a sorcery hat?”

“Hat?” said Merlin, and considered for a moment. “You know, I’m not entirely sure.” He pulled it from a pocket and poked at it with a careful finger. “Real hat. Definitely real. Just a bit too warm for a sunny day, that’s all.” 

“So is the beard real too?” 

“Real, not-real... it’s a part of me, so I suppose it must be” Merlin said a little vaguely and ran his hand down his face, as though he could not quite remember what face he was supposed to be wearing. The face changed as his hand ran over it, smoothing and changing, until he was wearing Arthur’s own face. It grinned at him disturbingly.

“Change it back!” Arthur said, rather more forcefully than he had intended.

“Sorry, sorry... I didn’t mean... “ Merlin shook his head and his face changed again, settling into a shape that was less unsettling although almost as familiar. “Is that right? I can’t remember exactly how it used to look. I mostly just changed the hair and the wrinkles.” 

Arthur looked at him dubiously. “ You look like Merlin is supposed to look. Maybe a little bit older. But that’s not your real face, is it?”

“My real face... I’m not sure? The magic is part of me, am I not real because of that? How are you supposed to look once you’re over a thousand years old?” 

“Fair point,” Arthur admitted. “At least it’s an improvement on the beard. ”

***

“What about magical creatures? Could you call up dragons or griffins or something like that?” 

Merlin looked sad. “Once I could. I don’t suppose you remember. I took you the last few miles to Avalon on the back of a dragon.”

“No. You are joking.”

“Really. It was all I could think of after the horses bolted. I was exhausted, you were unconscious. I didn’t think he’d come. He was very old, and ill, and living out his last days far away. I could barely stand up by that time, let alone put any power into summoning. But he heard me, and came, and he carried both of us to the lake. 

“It’s strange how all that is so clear in the memory. I can feel the heat of him, even now... You know, as you get old, it’s the new things that slip away. You forget what day of the week it is, but everything from when you are young is still there clear as ever...”

Arthur raised a hand to interrupt him. “But hang on. You said you could lift things by magic. Why did you need a dragon? Or horses, for that matter. Why not just... fly there?” Arthur made a vague whooshing motion with one hand. 

Merlin frowned. “I can lift things. Moving them around is harder though. Imagine you’re holding something, without using your hands so it’s a bit awkward. Then it starts to slip.” He picked up a small pebble and balanced it on the back of his wrist. It stayed still. He moved his arm, to and fro, and then again a little faster, and the pebble spun away and clattered to the ground. 

“Now imagine the thing you are lifting is yourself, and you get distracted and drop yourself and you’re hurtling towards the ground. You have only an instant to catch yourself. What if you miss? 

“Ouch!” Arthur said, suddenly imagining it all too clearly. 

Merlin grimaced in agreement. “Flying through the air by magic... I might be able to do it a short distance if I really concentrated. But carry two people for miles after fighting a battle? I’m pretty sure I’d have dropped us and we’d have gone splat.”

He grinned at Arthur “ You’d never have let me try it anyway.” 

“How d’you suppose I could I have stopped you?” Arthur said wryly. 

“Well, you could have asked.” 

“I could. And you’d have ignored me. There doesn’t seem to be much,” Arthur said, pinning down the source of his discomfort, and facing it as he would face any other enemy, “that I could do to stop you, even if I was fully armed and unwounded. No, it’s all right. You said you are loyal, and you’ve certainly proved it. I suppose I just have to hope you don’t change your mind.”

Merlin looked at him. “I don’t want power over other people. I don’t want to control them. I never have.”

“Probably a good thing, under the circumstances. But if we’re facing another sorcerer? One who wants to rule?”

“You’ve fought magical enemies before,” Merlin said, evasively.

“Nobody like you though.”

“There  _ is _ nobody like me,” Merlin said and flashed a smile at him, taking the edge off the arrogance. “Anyway, there are no dragons any more. Or wyverns, or griffins, or hippogriffs or unicorns, or, probably, sorcerers, except me. So far as I know, they’re all gone. I could probably make an afanc, they’re born of magic, slime and darkness, so it should be still possible to make one. But who’d want to do that? ” 

“We might need one,” Arthur said, gloomily. “But let’s hope not.” 

“I can call bees?” Merlin offered. “Bees are magical.” 

“They’re a bit small.” Arthur laughed. Bees did not seem as if they would be magical in any very alarming way.

“Well, yes. But they are interesting. Did you know they can tell other bees all sorts of detailed information about the places they fly through?”

“By magic?”

“No, it’s more of a... bee thing. But they can be a useful source of information, if you speak bee. And they do have small magics of their own too. Anyway, the point is that there’s something wrong with them now. “

“What  _ are _ you going on about?”

“The bees. They are dying. It used to be that bees were just, well bees. It was like keeping sheep. Well, sort of. You’d give them a hive to live in and make sure there were flowers around, they’d give you honey at the end of the summer. It was all pretty easy as long as you knew how to not get stung too much. But now it’s so hard just keeping them alive, particularly for beekeepers that don’t have magic. I’ve got small spells on beehives all around here, trying to keep the colonies going. Not just my hives, everyone’s... Some people think it’s a sign that there’s something terribly wrong. 

“They’re only bees, Merlin. Aren’t they?”

“ _ You _ thought a unicorn was just a horse with a horn. I think it might be important.” 

“Anything could be important. Or none of it.” He fidgeted, looking for the sword hilt that wasn’t there, although there was no sign at all of imminent danger. He would almost have felt happier if there had been. 

“Where the hell _ is _ my sword, anyway?” he asked. It wasn’t the real problem, but at least it was something to think about that had a definite purpose to it. 

“Your sword? The Lady in the Lake took it into her keeping”

“Well, where is she? I’d like it back.” 

Merlin thought about this. “I’m not sure. She went away with the People of the Hills - the Sidhe and the rest. They left England, I think. ”

“And England is...?” 

“It’s... sort of the south of Britannia, where most of the Saxons live. Lived, I mean, when they were Saxons, before it all got so mixed up... Look, I’ll show you a map.” 

Arthur pored over the battered road atlas with great interest. “And the Sidhe went out of England? So.. West, across the sea to Hibernia? Or south to Gaul?”

“Hibernia’s called Ireland now,” Merlin told him automatically. “But I don’t think she went that far. I think she may still be in the Island of Britain. I could ask the bees. It’s the kind of thing they often know. If that’s all right?” he added, looking suddenly awkward. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, you really didn’t like it when I did that little face-changing illusion just now.”

“Go on.” Arthur told him firmly. “It’s fine. Bees.”

Merlin took the road atlas down the path to the row of beehives, and put it on the ground, open to the page that showed the small scale map of the entire country. He spoke one quiet word, which was answered by a gentle humming buzz . Bees rose from the flowers and the beehives in an orderly, unhurried kind of way. They formed into a small cloud, swirling like a stirred pot over the map, and the they began settling on it so thickly that the atlas was black with them. 

There was a pattern to the movements, Merlin could see it, but it was confused, clumsy. He channelled just a little of his own power into the mass of bees, very gently, and the pattern swirled, clearing into a single spiral, and then the bees took flight again, vanishing into the flowering hedge, and leaving only one that paused for a moment on the map, before it too flew away. Merlin laughed. 

“Did you find it?”

“Yes!” Merlin said, triumphant. “Although, really, I should have known. Dozmary Pool. She hasn’t gone very far. I might have known she would be waiting too.” 

“Dozmary Pool?”

“Here.” he said, prodding at the map with an impatient finger. “Cornwall. Not too far at all. We can get the train.” 

  


***

  


That night, Merlin dreamed. He found himself in London, a city he had never visited, yet instantly recognised. It was night, and he stood near the river as crowds of busy people streamed across the bridges and along the roads. Streetlights reflected in the water. He could not move or speak. 

The sound of people and traffic died, although he could still see the bright crowds moving beneath the lights. Something white in the dark across the river caught his eye, something the size of a human body, writhing obscenely, and then another and another. Somewhere, someone was screaming. A red light grew in the sky, redder than the orange of the streetlights. 

Suddenly a tall woman strode in front of him, head high, with a mass of red hair, a great brooch on her shoulder, and a naked sword in her hand. This was something out of the deep past of the city, long-past history even when he was born, and yet, here it was happening before his eyes. 

The Lady of the Iceni was hanging the women and children of Rome. A sacrifice to the dark aspect of her triple Goddess. The pale bodies reflected in the dark water, even as the lights of modern London shone and the great towers stood, and the people of the city went about their business unaware. She turned and looked at Merlin. Still unable to move, he groped fearfully for a spell at the sight of the expression on that face, so marked with grief and bitterness and hate. 

The red light grew behind her, and she turned and went away, and now Merlin could hear the sound of air raid sirens wailing and the deep thrum of bomber engines overhead, while now a wider London burned around him, smoky, choking. And all the while, the crowds moved through the shadow of their own city, busy and unconcerned. 

Merlin awoke, gasping for breath. It was four am, but he did not feel like going back to sleep. He went downstairs and made himself a cup of coffee instead, and sat there drinking cup after cup as the slow, peaceful Somerset dawn came up out of the East. 

***

  


It was strange, seeing Arthur on a bus, on a train. Strange, because Merlin’s mind kept not expecting Arthur to be there, and then there he was, but also, in the way that he fitted into the world. 

He should have looked out of place. A man who had never seen a train should, surely, have appeared alarmed by the noise as it came hissing and juddering into the station, should have looked awkward and unfamiliar stepping into an Intercity carriage. 

You would never have known that Arthur had not taken this journey every week of his life. There he was, smiling as he lent a hand to the worried young father, struggling with pushchair and bags. There was the ticket collector nodding as if Arthur were somehow an old friend, the woman in the smart suit making some comment about the weather, the teens with backpacks, swinging them politely out of the way to let him pass.

Even the older man hunched over his laptop screen, headphones firmly in place, emitting an air of ‘don’t bother me’, emerged briefly from his self-imposed bubble as Arthur walked past his seat, and spared him a brief look and a half-raised eyebrow. 

He looked at home, confident, surrounded by people who somehow all seemed pleased to see him, even though he could barely speak to them. How did he do it? He looked more relaxed in this century than Merlin, even though Merlin had been there for every confusing day of it, and Arthur had walked into it yesterday. 

***

Arthur was watching the town of Taunton recede into the grey morning light through the grimy window of the railway carriage. Merlin had given him the window seat. 

“So many of them! There must be thousand of houses,” he observed, almost under his breath, to Merlin. “They seem to have no fear of any enemy. Do they have no fortifications at all? All I can see is hedges, fences. No castles, no defensible walls.”

“It’s amazingly peaceful. See why I like this century? Although, I suppose, it’s partly that they have weapons now that no castle wall would protect against.

“You mentioned them. Bombs.” Arthur looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard to think how to defend against weapons that can deal death so widely and at such a distance. Could you do anything against them with magic?”

“I tried. Eighty years ago.” Merlin said bleakly. “There were attacks from the sky. Bombs that started fires. Bit like... imagine a dragon attack. With a lot of dragons. Only worse than that... Some of them could break a whole street apart. They attacked the cities in massive raids. 

“I tried catching the bombs. Diverting them away from where the people mostly lived. There were just too many... Tried bringing in a fog so the pilots of the planes that carried the bombs couldn’t see where they were going. Turns out I can’t hold fog in place for long across an area that size, night after night after night. Tried killing the fires, but it was too wide a distance to cover...

“Oh, I suppose what I did helped a bit. And the enemy was defeated, in the end. But it didn’t feel like I achieved much, at the time. Millions of people died. I’m not used to ... to being powerless. For every bomb I stopped, there were two that got through. They just rolled over everything I could do.” 

Arthur looked at him. “You’re complaining because you couldn’t hold off an entire flying army single-handed?”

Merlin, taken by surprise, laughed. “ I suppose I am. But there was one thing about it, it was just me then. Doing what I could, like always. It was bad, but I knew it wasn’t the end of the world, because there was no sign of  _ you _ .” 

“You don’t think my waking up might be a mistake?” Arthur asked him, almost carelessly, still looking out of the window, but Merlin could hear the faintest note of tension in his voice. “Just a spell that wore off once it got old and worn out?”

“I wish I did think that,” Merlin told him honestly. 

“But you don’t?” 

“I’ve got a feeling like there’s a storm coming. Here, behind my eyes. “ Merlin rubbed his face. “There’s something happening, I can feel it. The magic of this island is... it’s  _ seething _ . I feel like I’m seeing everything... glazed. As if I were looking at it all through dirty glass, like this window. And I don’t know  _ why _ .”

Arthur looked at him, seriously. “That’s something anyway. I’d hate to think I was here by accident.” 

Merlin snorted. “You can talk! You got to take a short cut. I had to walk here the long way.”

  


***

  


They got off the train at the tiny station in Liskeard, and bought a local Ordinance Survey map. Arthur took possession of it, and studied it with fascinated interest as they made their way up out of the town. Merlin noted, exasperated but impressed, that Arthur seemed to have no difficulty at all folding it back up. Merlin had never once managed to fold an Ordinance Survey map up as the manufacturers had intended. 

They made their way along the winding single-track lane beside the stream, up into the close-cropped green upland fields that rise to the edges of Bodmin moor. It was a warm day for walking, the sky a deep blue overhead, marked with a few small fluffy clouds. 

Merlin took off his woolly hat, and then his thick coat. He had offered Arthur an anorak when they set off in the morning’s chill, but Arthur had refused it, so he was wearing only the pale lambswool clothes that he had worn the day before, light-weight, but not the coolest of clothing for a hot walk in the sun. 

Both of them were uncomfortably warm by the time they reached Dozmary pool, a quiet stretch of water in a shallow hollow in the tawny heather hills. The still water reflected the blue of the sky, for there was barely a ripple of wind, but there was a strange darkness to it too; the water below the sky-reflections was sullen, secretive. The distant buzz of a road could be faintly heard in the distance, but there were no nearer sounds and no people to be seen. 

“Now what?” Arthur asked, uneasily. His hand strayed to his side again, looking for the sword that was not there. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin said, deliberately relaxed. He sat down on the raised, undercut turf bank at the lakeside, feet down near the waterside. “I’m hoping that after a long hot walk in the sun, the Lady won’t mind too much if I give my feet a wash.” 

He took his shoes off and dabbled his toes in the water. It was surprisingly cold, despite the sunshine, cold peat-amber water, barred with golden sun. Arthur remained standing, alert and uncomfortable, scanning the hills and the open pool. 

“Do you summon her or something? Or do we have to dive into the lake? It looks deep.” 

“Now we wait. The Lady of the Lake is not a creature to be summoned at our convenience. She is a person of importance — and we want a favour.  _ You _ know how that works. Diplomacy, that sort of thing. We just have to wait.”

“Hm. Does she know we’re here?”

Merlin took his toes out of the water and lay back in the sun on the sheep-nibbled turf. “Sometimes the doors between worlds can only be opened at particular times. But I don’t think she will overlook us. The Once and Future King, not to mention the world’s most powerful sorcerer, sitting on her doorstep? That’s the kind of thing you don’t ignore.” 

He looked up at Arthur and raised his eyebrows. “Fidgeting on her doorstep, in your case.”

Arthur laughed abruptly and sat down on the grass. 

A buzzard screamed high above them, wide wings silhouetted against the blue sky. A small elderly tractor chugged slowly past in the distance.

And then the sound of water quietly lapping against the bank changed subtly. A note of singing came into it, almost like a grasshopper chirping to begin with, then it changed to a tone more like a flute, so gradually that it was not clear at first what was happening. 

The water in the pool began to move, around and around like a great whirlpool, and the centre of the pool sank away, leaving a path that began as black-brown peat and ended in silver sand. A woman came walking, up out of the deep dark centre of the lake into sunshine. 

She was an old woman, but strong and muscular still, with long white hair pulled into thick plaits, that were caught together at the end with clasps shaped like silver apples. She had dark slanting eyes caught in a net of wrinkles. Around her neck was a wide green-grey scarf, dappled with the colours of water. In her hand, she carried a naked sword. 

She strode up to the place where the water’s edge had been until a moment ago. Arthur hastily got up to greet her. 

“You have come for your sword, Arthur Pendragon.”

“I have.”

“It is here. I wish you good fortune in the wielding of it.” she said, very formally, as if delivering a speech long rehearsed, and placed the hilt into his hand. 

“Thank you for your care of it,” Arthur replied, but she was already turning away to speak to Merlin. 

“It is good to see you again, before the last evil comes, Merlin Emrys,” 

He looked at her, wondering, “Is it the end?”

“I cannot be sure. But I have dreamed terrible dreams and all of them end in darkness. Have you not felt it?” 

“Nothing so very terrible.” Merlin told her, troubled. He had dreamed, it was true, but his dreams had come out of the past, not the future. 

“I have a favour to ask of you, Merlin.”

“What favour is that?” he asked her cautiously. The Lady had, so far as he knew, always been honest by the standards of Faerie, but still, the people of that land could be very strange. One could not be too careful when dealing with them. 

“Will you seal the door between the worlds behind me, when I go? I have not the power to do it. And I fear the darkness in my dreams.“

“I ... should be able to. I’ll try, anyway.”

“Thank you.” She looked at him, and smiled warmly. “Or will you come with me? We could go through the door together, and close it forever behind us.”

Merlin was taken aback, and just a little flattered for a moment. It was a tempting thought, to walk away from the endless procession of ever changing days, the endless worries and small annoyances of the mortal world into the land of summer, where time means nothing. He could give up being the one immortal among mortals to live among the endless fae. He could, after all, walk away from the shadow that lay across the future. 

“And Arthur? And all the people of this land?”

“Mortals...” she said, making a dismissive gesture, and it seemed that she had almost forgotten that Arthur was there, standing quiet with the bare steel of the sword in his hand.  “Come with me, Merlin. Arthur’s destiny is to stand against the darkness... but I have not seen that it is your destiny to die by his side. You have a choice. Come with me out into the spring sunlight. Close the door against the dark forever.” 

“No.” Merlin said with absolute certainty. “I can’t do that.” 

A gleam of mischief passed across her wrinkled face “Ah well. I thought it must be so. And yet, it was a question worth the asking... Good fortune go with you, Merlin, and if there is light beyond the darkness, I wish you joy of it.”

She turned and went away, and behind her the whirling lake turned, and collapsed, and the pool was quiet and blue once again. 

Merlin stared at the water. He had a feeling that something wonderful had gone away, and that somehow, he had been too slow and missed it.

Arthur clapped him on the shoulder “Well, she was strange. She liked you though!”

“Yes, she did.” Merlin replied bleakly. 

Arthur looked at him. “You surely weren’t tempted to go with her? With the end of the world waiting? How could you miss that?”

Merlin forced a smile “How could I?” He took a deep breath. “I suppose I’d better close this portal then. After all, she did give you your sword back.”

“She did. Though I’m not sure I’d have risked coming here to get the sword if I’d known what she’d try to take instead.”

“Oh well. That was never going to happen.” He smiled, more easily this time, looking around at the golden hills, the blue lake. The sun was warm across his shoulders and bees were humming in the heather. The mortal world was perhaps not so terrible after all. “Not after waiting all this time for you to finally get around to turning up, anyway.” 

“So, are you going to...” Arthur gestured with his sword in a manner that presumably he thought suggested casting a spell on the lake. 

“Oh, that. I’ve done it. It was easy.” 

“You don’t have to wave your hand or... or chant a spell or something?” 

“It was just undoing a spell. I’m very good at it.” 

“The most powerful sorcerer in the world, right. I keep forgetting.”

  
  


****

  


“Did you  _ see _ that?” someone else said, in English. Merlin turned, surprised. 

A man was standing a short distance away, staring out at the lake with a wild-eyed look upon his face. He was perhaps in his thirties, and wearing a wide-brimmed leather hat and old grey overalls. He looked vaguely familiar: after a moment’s thought, Merlin recognised him as the driver of the old tractor that had gone past earlier. 

“It was a whirlpool! And then she just came... up. Up out of the water. How is that possible?” 

He looked at them again, and only then seemed to see Arthur properly, standing holding the bright sword in one hand. He ignored Merlin, of course,even without his hat. Merlin had spent lifetimes being ignored. That was another thing he was good at. 

“I always thought the stories were a load of bunk,” the man said to Arthur, and the words were almost an appeal. Arthur looked at Merlin and raised his eyebrows in bafflement. 

“He saw what happened and he doesn’t know whether to believe it,” Merlin told him in their own language, groping at the back of his mind for a memory spell. “I’ll hide his memory of it...”

“No!” Arthur told him, abruptly. “Merlin, he’s going to know. They are  _ all _ going to know, very soon, probably. If you hide this from him, then when... when the darkness comes, it will be a complete surprise. Is that fair?”

Merlin raised his eyebrows. The habit of secrecy was so ingrained that he had not even considered this point of view. 

“Merlin, you can’t just go meddling with people’s minds.” There was distaste in Arthur’s voice. 

Merlin after a moment’s confusion nodded. “You want me to tell him?” 

“Yes!”

“She was the Lady of the Lake,” he told the man, speaking in modern English. “She brought back the sword Excalibur for the Once and Future King.” 

“Oh, that’s utter bollocks. It’s just water. It’s not even that deep,” the farmer said, as if the depth of the lake had anything to do with its potential for magic. Merlin tried to explain. 

“In one sense it was just water. But it was something else, too. Not any more though. I’ve closed the way through. Now, it really is only a lake. Because, something very terrible is about to happen. She didn’t want to get involved.” 

The man was staring at the sword in Arthur’s hand. “That  _ can’t _ have been in the water. That pool dried out back in the 70’s, my father said, and there was nothing there but mud. And it’s not even rusty. It’s a movie prop or... something” the man said obstinately. Merlin could not think of a response to this, so he translated it to see what Arthur would make of it. 

“Tell him to trust his eyes. If he insists on disbelieving what’s in front of him, he’ll be an easy victim for the first magical threat.” Merlin translated this too. 

“Easy enough to fool a man’s eyes — what sort of threat? ” the man was still speaking to Arthur, although he must surely by now understand that Arthur did not speak English.

Arthur nodded, responding to the tone rather than the words, and offered his hand. 

“Arthur Pendragon.” 

The farmer stared, and Merlin thought that he would dismiss the name as _utter bollocks_ too, but he did not. 

“John. John Penrose. I... I don’t know if I believe any of this,” the man said helplessly, but he shook Arthur’s hand anyway. 

“I’m Merlin, by the way,” Merlin added, feeling unappreciated. 

Penrose looked at him, dubiously. “Merlin? Merlin the enchanter? Do you know how many people we get coming up here who gabble on about magic and crystals and healing energy and all that... flummery?”

“Flummery?” Merlin said, his voice thin and incredulous. 

“I take it he’s not convinced?” Arthur asked.

“He seems quite convinced by  _ you,”  _ Merlin told him. “But apparently magic is nonsense, and magic with the name Merlin attached to it, doubly so.”

“Then when he is attacked by magic, it will kill him. Show him,” Arthur said, pragmatically. 

“ _ Show _ him?” It went against all the instincts of the long centuries.

“Go on,” Arthur ordered impatiently. 

Merlin thought. Any large work of magic might attract more eyes, even in this remote spot, and he was not sure he was ready for that yet. The people of these times were used to seeing strange sights and visual illusions, too, so he would have to think of something that could not be a trick with mirrors or technology. He resolved to do something small, solid and eminently real. 

He said a word and lifted one hand, very carefully. And John Penrose rose, and floated about a foot above the ground. He jumped, when he noticed he was not standing on anything, and Merlin had to compensate quickly for the inertia before he tipped over and fell. 

“Still flummery?” Merlin asked him. 

“Whoa. That’s... that’s very strange.” John Penrose knelt on the air and peered at the space beneath his feet. He prodded at the empty air. “What is it, some sort of magnetism?” 

“Magnetism?” Merlin dropped him and he stumbled. “ Really? You think it’s  _ more _ likely that I came out here secretly in advance, buried a giant magnet, and then stole your shoes to put in iron plates?” 

“Merlin...” Arthur said, warning, in response to his tone rather than his words. 

John Penrose looked at his feet, now firmly back on turf, and then back at the peaceful water.

“Well, OK. Got to admit, that is pretty unlikely. But magic? That goes against everything I know about the world.” He frowned. “Though I read somewhere that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

“So call it ‘sufficiently advanced technology’, if that makes you happy, then” Merlin snapped. “My name is still Merlin, and I call it magic.”

Penrose grinned sheepishly. “OK then. Magic it is. He’s Arthur, she was the Lady of the Lake, and you’re Merlin. “ He stuck out a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Merlin.”

Merlin shook his hand, with some caution.

“What did you mean, magical threat?” Penrose asked him plaintively. “If I really have to believe in... magic, then what threat?”

Merlin shrugged. “We don’t know yet. All we know is that  _ he’s _ here, and that means there must be some great threat to counter. But what that might be... who knows. At least you have the small advantage now that you will not waste time thinking that trouble is in your imagination rather than in front of you.”

Penrose looked at Arthur, another long, troubled look. Then he shook his head. “So what I am I supposed to do? Turn my jacket inside out so the pixies won’t lead me astray?” He laughed. 

“I doubt there’s a single pixie left from here to Penzance, but you can do that if it makes you feel better,” Merlin said. Arthur gave him a pointed interrogatory look, and Merlin gave him the gist of their conversation. 

“Tell him... tell him to be wary,” Arthur said, looking frustrated. “Are these his lands? He may have to defend them. Tell him to arm his people.”

“I’ll tell him the rest,” Merlin said with a sigh. “But for one thing, I doubt he has people, in that sense any more. Farming... It’s a bit different now. And for another, they don’t carry weapons. They made that illegal.” 

Arthur let out an exasperated puff of air and then shrugged. “All right. Fine. Tell him... tell him to be careful. It’s all we can do.”

  


***

  


Penrose went away, riding high on his battered-looking machine with a worried look on his face. Well, if he was worried, so was Arthur. He looked down at his sword, turning it over carefully in his hands. It seemed to have come to no harm through all the intervening centuries that he kept forgetting lay between him and Camelot. 

No point dwelling on that. “It’s good to have this back, at any rate.” 

“You can’t go around with a naked sword in your hand,” Merlin said, being practical. “People will panic. I told you. Nobody walks around armed here any more.”

He pulled the woolly hat from his pocket and laid it on the turf. Arthur raised his eyebrows. 

“It has a ‘don’t notice’ spell knitted into it already,” Merlin explained. “Should be enough to hide your sword from anyone who isn’t specifically looking for it, if I can just reshape it a bit...

He held the edge, and pulled the top of the hat, so that stretched out long and narrow. Then he said a few quiet words. He spoke to the wool about the principles of growth, and it expanded and multiplied, and then he suggested that instead of being formed from the hair of sheep, it might consider being something else. The wool moved, twined and thickened, becoming more solid, more heavy. 

And there lay a long scabbard and belt of finely-cured sheepskin, worked with a swirling pattern in the original grey wool. It was hard to look at closely. The more you looked at it, the more your eyes slid off, looking at anything else. He picked it up and threw it to Arthur, who caught it left-handed and looked at it dubiously. 

“I can see it” he said. 

“That’s because it’s yours, and you know it’s there. If you didn’t know, you’d never notice it. Well, probably. It’s not invisible. It’s just... inconspicuous. “

Arthur considered this. “Clever,” he said, sheathing the sword. He belted the scabbard around his waist. 

“And thank you, Merlin, for giving me your hat?” Merlin suggested. 

“Well, obviously. Come on, we should make a start if we’re going to make it back to the station before the last train goes.” 

How Arthur had somehow picked up the idea of train times, when in their day time had been only roughly divided by the sun; that was beyond Merlin entirely. But he was getting used again to being taken aback by Arthur.


	3. Legends in the Mountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Linguistics, bees, a trip to Wales, an unexpected discovery and an argument.

Arthur was drinking tea by the kitchen window as Merlin pottered about outside with his bee-hives. He was trying to make sense of news from the radio. 

Picking up a basic idea of the new language had not been too hard: it was not unlike a hybrid of Saxon and Latin, once you got used to the accent. He had learned the old Saxon tongue from necessity, by hearing and speaking it. Fortunately, there were far more easy ways to listen to and practice English, that were much less likely to end in either violence or accidentally swearing blood brotherhood than had been the case with the old dialects of the Saxons. 

But there were still a lot of words that made very little sense. 

“...emergency services have been called to the area of the giant hydroelectric plant at Dinorwig in Snowdonia in North Wales, where there are reports of a sudden massive rock fall causing flooding. Work has been underway at the power station to develop a new pumped storage facility in slate caves, and it’s thought that the disaster may be related to this project. Snowdonia is a popular tourist destination. We are getting reports that there have been casualties among visitors to the area as well as workers at the plant, but so far there are no confirmed figures for the number of people hurt. We’ll be bringing you updates throughout the morning...” 

Hydro, that suggested water, and electric was a sort of tame lightning that they used to boil kettles and make light. And there was a plant. Some sort of huge dangerous waterside tree had fallen over? And ‘emergency services’; some sort of slave or servant was emerging? Emerging from where? The caves under the mountain? 

‘Disaster’ at least was clear, and so was the radio announcer’s tone of voice. This was an ill-starred, fated thing. 

Arthur prodded at the tablet-thing that they had bought in a vast palace-shop with Merlin’s money card. Apparently the thing was completely unmagical, although to Arthur this seemed hard to believe. There was no wax, only a bright shining glass, in which visions appeared. He demanded definitions for ‘hydroelectric plant’, ‘emergency services’ and the location of ‘Snowdonia’. 

It would have been easier if he had had a wordlist, but the one they had downloaded from wales.ac.uk had proved to be more confusing than helpful. Instead, he had begun his own wordlist in a small notebook made of improbably-white paper. It had a lot of crossings-out. 

****

“A rock fall, even a big one, doesn’t sound like it’s worse than the Vikings,” Merlin pointed out, some time later. “Let alone the Normans. I’d much rather have a falling mountain, honestly. You can walk away from a falling mountain.” 

Arthur shrugged. “Well, perhaps. But it’s the first out-of-the-way thing that sounds as if it might be important. It’s been weeks, Merlin! There must be something happening soon.” 

“The Vikings did start off raiding just one remote coastal settlement,” Merlin admitted. “And the bees are bothered by something today. They won’t settle, and they won’t tell me why.” 

“Oh well, if the  _ bees _ are bothered it must be important. “ Arthur said, half-laughing, half-serious. “It’s worth keeping an eye on, anyway. It sounds like a lot of people have been killed or hurt. I suppose it’s too far away to go and have a look, but I can watch these news reports anyway.”

“We could go and look — if you really want to go poking around a collapsed hydro-electric plant,” Merlin told him. “It’s a lot easier to get around than it used to be, you know.”

“It’s a long way to Gwynedd.” Arthur said, staring dubiously at the map displayed by the tablet. “Several days of walking, unless there is a train? But it would be a good way to learn more about the country, to journey across it.” 

“It would be. No railway going that way, but we can get there in a day, if I can manage to borrow a car.”

“You can drive one of those things?” Arthur was impressed. 

“I learned during the last world war. Would have been, oh, eighty years ago or so. I was in the Home Guard then.”

“They made  _ you _ a guard?” Arthur was amused and a little incredulous. “They must have been desperate; you are undisputedly the single least military person I’ve ever met. Were you terrible?”

“Fairly terrible” Merlin grinned. “But most of us were. It was... kind of horrible, really, but I learned a lot. Look, I’ll go and have a word with Ali. She’s got an old Volvo she lets me use sometimes when I need to pick up a swarm. ”

The Volvo was less sleek and shiny than most of the cars that Arthur had seen on the roads around Glastonbury, but it was none the less a rather majestic vehicle, large and square and dark blue, and when awakened, it made an impressive roaring noise. 

It felt good to be going somewhere with an aim in mind, as they roared out of Glastonbury onto the open road. The sky was blue, and once they reached the motorway the ride was exhilarating, if rather noisy: it ran at twice the speed of a galloping horse, and despite the speed, the thing only rattled a little. 

They practiced naming the parts of the car in English, and then Merlin tried to explain in English how it worked, only to have to give up half way, admitting, in response to Arthur’s increasingly exasperated questioning, that he didn’t really understand it himself. 

But as they drove past the vast expanse of the city that was called Bristol, and came at last to the great bridge across the mouth of the wide Severn River, they both fell silent. The square boxy car followed the sixth lane of traffic up, up above the tidal estuary, on until finally they came under the monstrous grey spider-web of bridge supports, and still fully half the great bridge lay before them, so far that the land ahead looked grey and faint. It was a huge structure, dwarfing the many vehicles and their occupants that streamed across, high above the open water. 

“Merlin,” Arthur said at last. “How the hell are we supposed to do anything to help people who can build a thing like this? I mean, what can they possibly need us for? Look at it! It’s like they are giants. Even the Romans never built anything like this.” 

“I don’t know” Merlin said, serious. “But I know they are still just people. I suppose we’re going to find out what you are needed for, one way or another. I’m a bit worried about that.” 

****

Wales was less busy than England, and much less dauntingly immense than the Severn Bridge. In places, you could almost imagine that Camelot still stood as a power in the land, if you ignored the smooth grey impossibly-regular roads. They drove through Gwent and up through Powys, following a narrow winding route between well-kept hedges, passing wealthy villages, fields full of fat cattle,and then up on to open hills, purple with heather and studded with sheep. 

“There are a lot of castles here, but they’re all ruins,” Arthur observed, emerging from behind the battered road atlas. It was a marvellous aid to planning a route, so detailed, so precise! The tablet-thing did not seem to like Wales. It kept complaining about having no signal, and he had abandoned it. 

“This was where the last resistance to the invaders held out, here, in Wales,” Merlin told him absently, watching the road. “That’s why there are so many castles.”

“For defending against Saxon invasion?” 

“Not really. Well, not most of them anyway. The people in charge in England were Normans, by then. They were the people who invaded and conquered the Saxons.”

“So our people were conquered by the Saxons, and then again by the Normans?” Arthur grimaced unhappily. 

“Yes. The castles weren’t for protecting the land or the people, they were for holding it down by force and extracting tribute. It wasn’t a good century, the thirteenth.” He gave Arthur a sharp look across the steering wheel “I was expecting you back any moment, in those days.”

Arthur met his glance. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I wasn’t alone, either. The Welsh remember you as their champion.” 

“But why? Aren’t we in Powys now? We’re way beyond Caerleon, even. I never ruled Powys, you know that ... What’s his name is king of Powys. Was, I mean. Aurelius Concennus. Why wouldn’t they be waiting for Concennus?”

“Because,” Merlin explained with obvious patience, “You are King Arthur. The once and future king. They’ve forgotten Concennus ever existed, but they remember  _ you _ . The people who ran when Camelot fell, when Caerleon, Glevum and Viruconium burned. They fled into these hills and they brought their stories with them, stories about how you’d come back to save them. They remember the prophecy. And they remember forty years of peace, after you defeated the Saxons.” 

“You defeated them, not me.”

Merlin shot him a grin, reining the grumbling car in as they came to the outskirts of a small grey-stone town, busy with cars. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way. But they don’t remember that either. It’s been fifteen hundred years, after all.” 

Arthur considered this for a while in silence. “Forty years of peace. I suppose it could have been worse. You know, I don’t think there’s even a shepherd watching those sheep.”

“No need. No wolves or bears any more, nor border raids.” 

They were coming up now from the woods and moorlands and into a land of true mountains, winding a way between looming tawny heights that glowed with the golden light of the westering sun. Long blue shadows began to stretch across the road and make dark patches under the low stone walls that straggled across the lower hillsides. 

The Llanberis road, when they finally reached it, was cordoned off: there were three police cars parked there, with grim-faced police watching the road. Merlin did not attempt to turn into it. Instead he drove a little way past and pulled the Volvo in onto the verge. 

“Now what?” Arthur asked. 

“I don’t think we’ll get in that way today,” Merlin told him. “They didn’t look too welcoming, did they? But there’s something nagging at me, here. I don’t know what, exactly, but this place feels... familiar.”

“You’ve been here before?” 

“I don’t think so. But still, there’s... something. I can feel it pulling at me. 

“Something to do with magic, or just a nagging feeling that you’ve driven all this way and forgot to tell the bees when you’d get back?” Arthur said, turning it into a joke. 

“Bees.  _ Bees _ . They might know something. My bees wouldn’t tell. I wonder if the bees here would be more communicative. ” 

Arthur gave him a dubious look and consulted the map. 

“I’ll leave the bees to you if you don’t mind. There’s a back road on the other side of the mountain there that would avoid the guard on the main road. I think we could walk over from there and look down on it. You can look out for bees on the way, if you like.” 

By the time they had worked their way around to the other side of Snowdon, and up again along a narrow track that curved up the open mountain side, the valleys were full of shadow, and the last of the sunlight was glancing on the rock of the high mountain top, tracing a golden line against the blue of the sky. The road petered out into a rough unsurfaced track, and Merlin pulled the Volvo off to one side. 

The landscape was an empty one. From the car they could see no lights, only the immense curve of the valley, a great iron-grey slope threaded with the gold of gorse and the purple of heather above, a small plantation of densely-planted conifer trees below, and the mountainside stretching away into the velvet-blue of the darkening sky. Arthur got out of the car and stretched extravagantly. 

“Too dark to walk over the mountain now. There’s only a new moon. We’d break a leg. Best wait till morning. “

Merlin heaved a dismal sigh. “Oh, great. A night on a mountain. You do realise I’m more than _fifteen hundred years_ old? We could drive down to the coast and find an inn.” 

Arthur laughed at him. “You can sleep in the car, if you like. I’ve had more than enough of it for one day. I’m sleeping under the stars.” He put his hand to his side absently. The wound pulled at him after the long drive, although Merlin had done... whatever Merlin did to take the pain away only an hour before. 

“I’ll make a fire,” Merlin said resignedly, dumping the bag full of pork pies, chocolate and apples, and the sleeping bags that they had bought in Abergavenny on the ground next to the car. He turned downhill, towards the plantation. “At least it looks like there’s plenty of wood under those trees.” 

The fire leapt up bright and eager when Merlin called it, almost without smoke on the dry sticks, sending up bright sparks into the starry sky with the sharp scent of pine sap. It made a small bright space on the dark hillside, with walls of darkness where the firelight faded. 

It was a still night, not cold, but the warmth of the small fire felt welcome. Arthur, reclining half-visible in the firelight, looked familiar in a way that Merlin thought he had forgotten centuries ago. 

“Like this, you could almost think it’s all out there still, just beyond the firelight,” Arthur said in a low voice, almost to himself. “That they are all out there waiting still. Guinevere. Knights, friends, allies, enemies. ” 

Merlin looked at him. “It’s so close, for you, isn’t it? For me it’s long ago, but for you...”

“Three weeks ago, that’s all it seems” Arthur forced a laugh, and there was no humour in the sound at all. “If I could go back just one month, and have Camlann all to do again, I would. I don’t care what threatens this new land. It’s not mine. Everything I had and was is gone. I would go back in a heartbeat, if only I could. ”

“I’m sorry. But I’m still glad you’re here again at last,” Merlin told him, and it was strange, strange to be talking to Arthur again, strange to be able to speaking of Camelot and tell the plain truth at last after the long centuries of lies. 

Arthur leant forward and poked the fire with a stick, sending up red sparks spiraling skyward. “Worse for you though. You saw it all go, and had to live on, alone. How did you do it?” 

“I didn’t get a choice. There’s always something to be done, someone needs help, people wanting things... the world doesn’t end, even when it feels like it has. And anyway, I like to eat. Can’t just sit down and starve.”

Arthur chuckled and threw him the last of the pork pies. Merlin caught it in both hands and took a bite, with a nod of acknowledgement. 

“I got married twice,” he went on, “Once in the fourteenth century. Not a great time to be on your own, that century. War, famine, plague, revolt... Her name was Alice.”

“What happened to her?” Arthur asked after a pause full of memories and the fire cracking.

“Oh, she died. They all do, in the end... I’ve not thought about her in years. I can’t remember her face any more. I remember her voice though. She was the one who started me off keeping bees. Six hundred years of bees, give or take.”

“Who was the other?”

He smiled “That was much later. The nineteenth century. Violet. She was a battleaxe! I was her fourth husband.” 

“You married a fierce old Saxon lady?” Arthur was amused.

“She was fifty-two. Of course, I was, oh, about thirteen hundred years old at the time... I really didn’t get much of a choice about it. Nobody ever said no to Violet when she’d made up her mind. I inherited my house in Glastonbury from her, that and a cat, and a half-interest in a bakery on the High Street... She died when she was eighty-five, telling me off for not having taken my boots off before I came into the house - a heart attack, I think. As good a way to go as any.”

“Better than many I can think of. Did they... did they know?” 

“That they’d married an immortal sorcerer? No. Alice would have been scared, and it would have been dangerous too, then. Violet... Violet knew I could do a few charms. She noticed things, unlike some people. But about the immortality, no. She would never have let me hear the last of it.” Merlin hugged his knees, remembering. Remembering other liaisons, less official, more private too. Not many, not for over a thousand years of life, but all the more treasured for that. 

There was a pause as the fire burned down to bright embers.

“What happened to...?” Arthur cut himself off, abruptly “No,” he said, slowly “I don’t think I want to know. Not yet. It makes it all seem ... too close.” 

Merlin nodded, accepting. “Best get some sleep,” he said, unrolling his sleeping bag. 

***

The dawn was cold and foggy that morning, with a shower of cold rain to discourage them from lingering on the open hillside. 

“I don’t think the Volvo will be able to get over these,” Merlin said, inspecting the potholes dubiously. 

“Leave it here” Arthur told him. “ We can walk from here,” 

“Probably safest anyway: I’m not sure where this rock fall we’re looking for started. I don’t fancy being in a car if the ground opens under us,” Merlin said gloomily. The grey skies made the mountains that had looked so golden yesterday look damp and miserable. His clothes felt clammy,he was a little stiff from sleeping on the ground, and nagged by doubt whether coming here to meddle in what was probably just one more natural disaster had really been a good idea. And yet, there was that odd familiarity about the place, like a familiar scent or a phrase of music that he could not quite recognise. 

Since they were here, they might as well go on. Arthur was already striding off up the track. Merlin hurried after him. 

They did not have far to go. Up over the shoulder of the mountain following the trail through the gorse and bracken, with the tall peak to their right and then down again, where the grass track became a narrow lane edged with ramshackle granite walls holding back blue heaps of sharp-edged tumbled slate. Ahead in the distance under the dark mountain-side ahead, a long lake stretched, grey and quiet under the cloudy sky. 

The place seemed peaceful in the early morning quiet, as if, no matter what had happened here, nobody had yet woken up to deal with it. 

They rounded a corner past a copse of scrubby birch-trees, and came to an abrupt halt. The ground ahead fell away, raw and dusty, into a great chasm. Something that had once been a wire fence straggled down into the depths, crushed by fallen boulders and shredded by the sharp edges of the slate, to show where the road had once led. It was as if half the mountain had been scooped away. 

On the far side, perhaps half a mile or more away, the remains of buildings could be seen, scattered across the far slope. The great gap ran right the way down the mountain. The vast weight of the fallen stone had ripped a great hole in the woodland all along the lakeside and pushed out into the lake, so that the avalanche had almost divided the lake in two. 

Merlin could see smashed and broken cars, and the shattered remains of what had once been a caravan, sticking out of the piles of grey-blue broken stone towards the bottom of the great rip in the mountainside. 

As they looked over, silenced by the scale of the fall, the stones towards the bottom of the slope moved and shifted a little, heavily, making a deep rumbling. A group of orange-clad people far down near the lake shouted and hurried back from the vast landslip, vanishing behind a clump of trees that still clung precariously to the edge. 

“Whew,” Arthur said, stepping, very cautiously, forward to peer over the edge, and then retreating backwards almost as quickly. “That is one very big hole. I wonder how many people got caught when it came down? ”

“I don’t know,” Merlin replied absently. The feeling that there was something familiar, something right was even stronger here, as he stood and looked out down to the lake: no longer like a scent or music, more like something you could put out your hand and touch. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Arthur turned to him, frowning. “You’re smiling. This is a horrible disaster. There are probably people under that pile of rock. Why are you smiling?” 

“I don’t know,” Merlin said again, and yet a sense of happiness was bubbling up in him as if the air was fizzing, and he could not help the smile spreading itself across his face. “There’s something.... Something down there. Something good.” 

“Something good. Right.” Arthur looked dubious. 

Merlin turned and scrambled over the fallen end of the fence, looking for a way down. 

“Careful! “ Arthur warned him, following. “More of it could go.” 

“No. Not here. It’s safe for us. ” Merlin said, confident for some reason he couldn’t explain. 

“How do you know?” 

“I just do. Anyway, I can hold it up with magic if I have to.” 

“Fair enough” Arthur admitted and scrambled down the slope, grabbing handholds on the scrubby trunks of the small birch trees to balance himself. A wide stretch of blue sky had opened above them, allowing the sun to light the wet birch-stems, which shone and sparkled in the morning sun, although in the North a great purple cloud loomed behind the mountains, threatening renewed rain. 

They came down the slope perhaps a hundred feet or so, and halted near a crag that stuck out a little way over the abyss, golden-brown with late summer bracken and studded with the yellow flowers of gorse. 

Obeying a call that he could not hear, but only feel, like the feeling of a warm gorse-scented wind against his face, Merlin turned and looked out again, over the great rift in the hillside, and then down and among the rocks and the gorse near his feet, as a nagging doubt pulled at him, as if he had set something important down in the heather and now was unable to see it. 

He had a growing sense of urgency, turned to look back up the slope and then down again to the edge of the chasm, frustrated. “I can’t see it,”. 

“See what? Merlin, what are we doing here?”

“Looking for... looking for a key,” Merlin told him, because he was confident that was what he was doing, although the why temporarily escaped him. 

“A key. And you’re sure that you haven’t just gone _completely_ mad, are you?” 

“Fairly sure” Merlin told him, and dropped to his knees on the damp turf that was warming now under the brightening sunshine, calling, calling. 

Out of the heather came a bee, and then another, and another. They flew past Merlin and over the edge of the crag. Merlin inched forward cautiously to the edge of the cliff, on his stomach, looking down. 

“Hang on,” Arthur told him, and grabbed his ankles firmly, anchoring him securely in place. Merlin inched forward again, until his head and arms and upper body were hanging down at the patch of cliff where the bees were gathering, and he could reach down to touch them. 

There was a hole in the cliff just at that point, a round hole chipped into the stone. He reached down and into the hole, just at the limit of his arm’s reach, and felt a hollow space, smooth inside with something round and heavy in it. It felt like a pebble that had been washed by the tide until it was almost, but not quite perfectly round. 

He took hold of it, and tried to pull it out, but it was just a little too large to fit through the hole. Well, that was easy enough. He reached out with his magic and pressed, just a little, and then a little more, feeling the stone move and reshape itself under his touch, until it just fitted into his hand with space to pass through the hole in the rock. The bees buzzed, approvingly. 

And then something answered his small shaping-magic, something huge and powerful and familiar. Merlin gasped and almost dropped the stone in surprise. He would certainly have gone over the cliff then, if it was not for Arthur’s reassuring grip on his ankles, holding him safe. 

“Pull me up, I think I have it,” he called back to Arthur, and felt a steady pull backwards, until he could get his hands back onto the firm grass at the edge and roll over, panting. 

The thing he had found looked like nothing much; just a stone, a smooth grey pebble with a line of white quartz running through it like any pebble picked up on the beach. 

“What is that?” Arthur asked.

“I think it’s a key.” Merlin said, feeling a little lightheaded. 

“Funny looking key. What does it unlock?” 

“I think it’s not so much what, as who. But it’s not for me. It’s for you.” Merlin was quite certain about that, although he could not quite explain why. He held out the pebble to Arthur, who looked doubtful and took it reluctantly. 

“Looks just like a pebble to me...” Arthur began to say, but the sound of shifting stone interrupted him. 

Far below them the mass of fallen slate was moving again, this time shifting sideways and bulging upwards, as if something huge was pushing it up and out of the way. The sound of falling stone was deafening, the whole slope was moving, from the cliff-side down almost to the lake. Then something pale showed for a moment, above the blue-grey mass of sharp stone shards. 

The movement paused for just long enough to make Merlin wonder if that was all, and then it heaved again. A huge long savage head broke the surface and shook vastly, sending great lumps of stone bouncing down to splash into the lake. 

The dragon paused and heaved again, a long white back, wings, and then the sharp-contoured tail emerging, vast, scaled, improbable. And now a second head was showing, darker this time, a vivid blood-red in the morning sun. It was a second dragon, dragging itself out of the huge mass of broken stone. Behind it came a third, a little smaller, a fourth, a fifth... 

Now the great red beast was stretching, poised like a huge cat upon the mound of stone. It yawned, exposing teeth the length of a man’s arm, and unfurled its huge wings, so wide they cast long shadows right across the great rift in the rock. Sunlight slanted down on the dragons, under the great dark cloud that was rolling down from the North. The intense light picked out the details of the muscles beneath the scaled skin. 

The red dragon sprang into the sky, above the mountains and the dark lake, climbing upwards through thin golden sunlit rain. Its white mate followed, and behind it five more dragons, long and limber, their vast wings shadowing the land below against the golden light that shone through the rain, and as they flew, the seven dragons sang; a song older than the hills, a song like trumpets. 

“Look at that! Just... look at that!” Merlin was laughing, filled with sheer joy at the wonder of the flight of dragons. 

He turned to Arthur to share his delight, but Arthur’s face as he watched the dragons fly was sombre. He was still holding the stone in one hand. 

“Merlin. Tell me that this,” he gestured with the stone to the dragons, now distant high overhead “didn’t do _ that _ ?” 

“Well, yes. Of course. It’s a key, a key to the spell that released them from the spell of sleep. They must have been here for thousands of years. I had no idea they were here, all this time!” It seemed amazing to him that he could not have known. That he had thought all the dragons dead, while here they slept. Then he thought of something. 

“I think... I think it must have been the time, that was important, the time as well as the key. The slope collapsing here” He waved down at the great rift, “They must have been stirring already. They knew we were coming. They were waiting.”

“So it appears,” Arthur said grimly. “And now not only have they caused this rockfall, which has already killed people, but there are seven dragons,  _ seven _ , Merlin, flying loose in this country full of children, sheep and cattle. Don’t you think that’s going to cause a certain amount of trouble? Didn’t it occur to you to mention what you were planning?”

“I didn’t plan it,” Merlin objected. “I only realised there were dragons down there just now, as I was taking the key out. Then I knew I had to give it to you. Pendragon, you see? You were tied into the spell by blood. I’ve always wondered where that name came from.” 

Arthur made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Doesn’t matter. Look, Merlin,” he paused and took a deep, angry breath. 

“I have no idea what strange power has brought me here, or what I can possibly achieve now. Why... why on earth it should be me, out of all the dead kings, why me? But since I’m here, I tell you now, I’ll be no sorcerer’s tool, not even yours, Merlin. I won’t be a symbol, or the unthinking key to some spell, or a magical toy for destiny. Sod destiny. I’ll make my own choices. Otherwise, I’ll be no king. I won’t even be a man any more.”

“I’m sorry,” Merlin said, stricken. “I didn’t mean... It was just all too much, first you, then the dragons. Look, I can control the dragons. I’ll talk to them.”

“Do that,” Arthur told him shortly. “Do it  _ now _ . I’m going down into the town to see if there’s anything I can do to help the people here.” He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Merlin to follow him back through the thin straggling wood of small birch-trees. 

The young Merlin that Arthur had known would have hurried, trying to stop Arthur, trying to talk to him, to explain. He would have been overwhelmed by confused emotions and a sense of once again having got things wrong. 

But the Merlin who had lived many lifetimes no longer expected to get everything right, and he knew that time covers mistakes like nothing else. 

He let Arthur go off down the hill, angry energy in his stride showing his frustration. At least he was walking more easily now: the spell Merlin had set on his wound was holding: that was good. Merlin turned and headed up the mountain to a wider clear slope where a dragon would have space to land. 


	4. The King’s Hound and the Dragonlord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin speaks with dragons. Arthur speaks with landslip rescue workers.  
> (thanks to raiyana for a helpful second beta on this chapter)

The great rockfall blocked Arthur’s way to the town. He had to make his way cautiously along the side of it, scrambling through gorse and bracken. The effort of it made his wound ache again, and he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. He looked up warily, wondering where the dragons were now. He could see no sign of them against the grey cloud. How  _ could _ Merlin be the greatest sorcerer in all the land, and such a fool? 

He remembered then that he was himself far out of time, following an unknown destiny, and that the dragons had not woken for Merlin. They had woken for Arthur. A heavy weight felt as though it had settled in his stomach at that thought. It was one thing to be a king, and he had done his best to be a good one. It was another thing to be the Once and Future King. But there was nothing to be done about it, so he frowned down at the broken stone until his breathing calmed. 

The dragons had set the rock sliding where their great claws had dug in as they launched themselves into the sky. The great tongue of unstable rock stuck out into the lake was even wider now, and strips of orange tape fluttered from the stones, showing where the perimeter of the slide had been yesterday, before the dragons flew. The drizzle had stopped and the light reflecting on the lake and the wet rock was dazzling. 

People in mud-smeared orange vests were hurrying along the edge of the landslip. Two of the great digging machines that had presumably been working on moving stone before the dragons had emerged, were now embedded deep in the slip, their yellow arms half-raised and tilted alarmingly. There was a breathless sobbing sound, echoing from the rock. Arthur broke into a run. 

The second rockfall had caught several workers who had been too near the edge of the landslip. Arthur could see faces grey with damp rockdust, bodies caught beneath stone and earth. The grey-faced workers who had escaped the second fall were trying to lift the smaller stones and help those who were within reach. They barely seemed to notice him, one more figure dwarfed by the mass of blue-grey stone. 

Arthur silently cursed Merlin and his strange delight in dragons. He joined the workers without a word, helping a muddy person who was pulling at the heavy stones that half-covered a still body, moving each aside until the man could be gently pulled free. The man was breathing, Arthur discovered with relief. He was unconscious, but alive. 

A strange eerie wail made him start, but it was not a dragon, but a line of brightly-coloured vehicles driving along the lakeside road behind them, their shrill wailing and blue lights announcing that reinforcements had arrived. 

Whoever was in command was not going to be caught out again by the menace of the falling rock. The vehicles pulled up a long way along the road, far from the piled stone, and people with stretchers came to take those who could not walk. Arthur turned back to the dusty stone. 

At some point he acquired a pair of thick protective gloves, and learned that the worker he was helping was a woman named Sian. It was exhausting, moving the stones, checking for signs of life among the fallen bodies, but in some way that he did not care to examine too closely, it was also a great relief, to have a physical task to do and a clear idea of how to do it.

Before long they had found a way across the shifting stone to the nearer of the two diggers. The driver was alive, although his legs were bent at a terrible angle, and jagged bloody bone was protruding horribly through the skin. He was breathing in a strained way that suggested there was something wrong with his chest. In Arthur’s day that would have been a deathblow, but these bright-jacketed rescue workers were not easily discouraged. 

The man was clearly known to Sian, and to the others who gently eased him from the stone-filled leaning digging machine. He could see the shock in their eyes, the disconnect with reality. 

He had seen eyes like that in battle. Perhaps there was some great magic of this new world that would heal this man, or perhaps there was not, but Arthur knew that people in this state would work until the mountain fell on them. Accepting the loss of one of their own would be harder for them than anything else, and that in itself was a danger. 

Arthur moved aside to let the stretcher pass, watching the stretcher bearers and keeping an eye out for movement across the masses of stone that towered away above them up the valley side. It had not moved since the dragons had taken off. The dragons! He looked up at the sky, grey now with rainclouds, and could not see them. 

But there was a movement above him on the slope. He looked up, squinting in alarm against the light, and realised that it was not a movement in the rock, not a dragon, but a dog, a long-legged black dog. 

He thought for a moment that it must be trapped, but then it moved again, and he could see that it was standing on the loose stone of the slope, pawing at the gravel. It could not have been there when the stone was moving: surely nothing could have survived that. It must have come out onto the slope after it had stopped, as Arthur had done himself. If it moved about, though, it might set another slide going. 

Arthur cautiously stepped up onto a great boulder that had smashed into the front of the digger. From that vantage point he could see the ridge where the dog was standing, and something pale on the ground beside it: an arm, a shoulder, the side of a face.

Carefully, Arthur stepped to another long splintered slab of stone, testing it first with one foot. It looked fairly well anchored. He glanced behind him: the rescuers and the stretcher were retreating safely onto the solid ground, and so he edged along the rock, carefully, carefully, watching for the first sign of a slide, as the dog pawed at the loose stone. Finally he was close to the body, half buried in blue-grey slate and filthy with dust and mud. 

It was a boy, perhaps eight years old. This could not be one of the rescue workers. He must be someone from the town. That meant he had been trapped since the first rockfall, the one they had heard about on the radio. The child was terribly still, half buried beneath the rubble, his face marked on one side by a great purple mass of bruising. Arthur reached out, feeling for a pulse. For a long bitter moment he thought there was nothing, and then there was the faintest flutter, a distant sign that life was still there. The dog whined. Arthur’s side pulsed with pain, and he bit his lip to distract himself. 

Where the  _ hell _ was Merlin? If ever there was a need for magic... Arthur looked around desperately, but of course, when he was actually needed, there was no sign of him. He could see the woman, Sian, though. She waved him back urgently, hand indicating the loose mass of slate above all their heads. Arthur ran his eyes along the irregular edge. It had taken seven huge dragons to move the stone before. Surely, prising one child’s body from the wreckage could be done without setting it sliding again. 

He took the boy’s free arm and knelt, trying to get a grip, trying to find a firm footing. Then he pulled, one long slow motion against the grip of the slope. There was resistance. He pulled again, trying not to imagine the damage that might lie beneath the surface of the stone, and at last the boy’s legs came free. 

He lifted the child gently, wary of causing further injury, and stepped back, carefully, so carefully, onto the boulder that had bridged the loose stone, and edged back along it. It was harder this time. The loose stone beneath had shifted minutely beneath his weight and now the surface was unsteady. He felt it move, out of time with his own step, and realised the dog was following. The rock slid, inches, and now there was slate cutting sharply into his ankle. Arthur bit his lip, ignored the pain in his side and concentrated on keeping his feet balanced. 

The dog pressed against his leg, poised, and then it leapt, light and graceful, across to the larger stone wedged against the digger, and Arthur followed it. Another step, another, and now the ground seemed more solid again, and finally they were walking on tarmac with just a scattering of slate gravel across it, and he paused to take a deep shuddering breath.

The boy was the last of the injured that they were able to snatch from the loose rock. Those who had been hurt at the edge of the fall had been moved to safety. A new digger was approaching along the road behind them, as the child was fastened into a stretcher and whisked away by serious-faced people wearing green. 

The time for working on the stone with their hands was over. He straightened, wiping a grimy face with one hand. Where was Merlin? He surely must have finished doing... whatever he was doing, with the dragons by now. Arthur’s side was aching fiercely. The sky had clouded over and he could feel a cold wind chilling the sweat on his back. 

The orange-dressed rescue worker, Sian, caught his eye, and tipped a hand to her mouth to suggest a drink. Arthur was suddenly aware of the stone dust smeared across his face. He felt intensely thirsty. 

They made their way back from the rockfall to a building along the lakeside, the centre for the rescue efforts. The dog followed them, trailing behind a little, looking lost. 

Arthur clicked his fingers and it came to him. It was a fine beast, not made quite like the shaggy hunting dogs of Arthur’s own time, but clearly a running dog, bred to take hare or deer, with short black fur that outlined the muscular shoulders, the tucked up waist and powerful hindquarters. It looked at him with shining amber eyes and leaned against his leg as he rubbed its ears. 

Sian put a thick red mug full of strong tea in front of him. He had never tasted anything so welcome. 

“So, who are you then?” she asked him, taking a swig from her own mug “Apart from a bloke called Arthur, I mean. I thought you were one of the relief that came over from Wrexham, but you’re not, are you?” 

Arthur found that he could understand most of this — good, his English was finally getting to the point of being useful. But he didn’t have an answer, so he took a gulp of his tea and shrugged. 

“Are you a hiker? You aren’t one of the rescue teams at all, are you? Thank god you didn’t get hurt helping out, I’d never have heard the last of it.” 

“Dragons,” Arthur pointed out to her. 

Her eyes narrowed. “Good point. Dragons.  _ Dragons! _ Nobody is going to be checking for unauthorised volunteers. They are all going to be far too busy dealing with ... real dragons. I can hardly believe it myself, and I saw it. The size of them! How is that even possible?“

“Magic,” Arthur said, and watched her eyebrows go up. 

“I wish I had a better explanation than that one, I truly do. It must have been... terrorists. Or maybe some sort of movie stunt that went wrong...?”

“Real. Coming worse things also.” 

He took a swig of his tea, and marshalled the words of the new language carefully. 

“Dragons are real. Face danger with eyes open.” 

“You sound so sure.” she said, wondering. “How do you know this, Arthur?” 

And then, she said the name again, as if she was hearing it for the first time. “Arthur. No. Not really. Oh  _ come on _ . And yet, the dragons... they were real. I would put money on it, they were real...” her voice faded away in confusion. 

“I’ve seen dragons before,” he told her. 

“A man called Arthur comes down out of the mountain and there are dragons flying over him... It would sound so ridiculous if it wasn’t true.” She looked at him, and he could see from the way she was breathing that she, who had come through a rockfall so calmly, was on the edge of real shock. 

“Arthur Pendragon,” he told her and watched her eyes widen, her face incredulous. “You know my name?”

“Arthur Pendragon? You’re joking. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Everyone knows about King Arthur Pendragon. Same as everyone knows, oh, who Luke Skywalker’s father is. Or Harry Potter. King Arthur’s not  _ real _ .” 

“It’s my name,” he told her. “Is who Harry Potter? Why...” he lost the English words. “This is just too bloody difficult. And more than slightly ridiculous,” he said to himself, in his own tongue. The dog looked up at him with comprehending eyes. Perhaps dogs did not worry about language. 

“You speak Welsh? Well, of course you  _ would _ , wouldn’t you. This is amazing. Unless you’re winding me up.” 

“Don’t know what is... winding up?”

“Joking?” She looked at him. 

He took a moment to marshall the treacherous words. “I was at Camlann, three weeks ago. I’m here, now.” Somehow, it was important that she should know, should understand. He drew the sword from its hidden scabbard, and showed it to her. 

“Okay. Either you are really mad or... you aren’t joking. Nobody wears a sword to walk across a fall like that, rescues a dying child then comes out and makes jokes about legends. Camlann.... that’s the last battle isn’t it? Where Mordred and Arthur fight, and Arthur is wounded and goes to sleep in the Isle of Avalon...  _ Why _ ?” 

“I don’t know. Yet.” 

“Guinevere? Lancelot? Kay? Gawaine? Are they around here too? All the knights and ladies...” 

He looked at her steadily, facing the names although they hurt. “No. Only Merlin. Is always, Merlin.”

“Merlin the wizard? No! And the dog? Is that your dog, Cavall?”

The unexpectedness of it made him laugh. “I had no dog named Cavall!” 

“You DID! All the stories say you did. King Arthur, his wizard Merlin, the sword, Excalibur, and the dog, Cavall, and a white horse...” 

“Thought you didn’t... believe in stories. ”

He looked down at the dog, still leaning against his leg, warm and companionable. 

“Not my dog.”

“He looks like he’s yours now. If he had an owner, they’re probably under the rocks.”

"Cavall,” he said, testing, and the dog looked up at him, ears going up, alert and hopeful. 

“Cavall. Arthur Pendragon’s dog, Cavall. ” Arthur smiled. A dog was no compensation for a world lost, but it was something. 

***

Merlin had forgotten about dragons. Or at least, he remembered them the way he remembered his childhood, full of bright shining moments. He had forgotten the brutal power of them. He had forgotten the wildness of their eyes. He had forgotten how hard it was to compel even one dragon to do anything it did not wish to do.

And now there were seven. Seven dragons, old, strong dragons, sleeping since long before Merlin’s birth. Their power was frightening. 

And yet... their presence was intoxicating. The magic of the land was growing and unfurling around them. He could feel it. 

He stood upon the mountain, and he called, throwing power into the sky in a way that he had not needed to do for so many years. The dragons answered, but reluctantly, diving towards him and then sheering off with a great clap of wings, eyes narrowed and heads turned away ‘I can’t see you’ their movement said, playfully, or at least, it would have been playful from a creature that could not crush him with one claw. 

At last, one landed, the largest one, the red dragon. Merlin decided that was enough. He ignored the others, and they shot upwards to dance in the sky high above. He focussed all his attention on the one on the ground. He had never seen a dragon so large. It regarded him with eyes of intricate gold. 

“Merlin,” the dragon said, in a voice like a great bronze bell. “Merlin Emrys. Your name was foretold.” Its speech was the spell-language, strangely mannered and archaic, but quite comprehensible, at least to a dragonlord. 

“Well, I had no idea you even existed,” Merlin said frankly. “What’s your name?” 

The dragon reared back on its hind legs, clearly agitated, eyes narrowed, the massive muscles around the base of its wings flexing, fire glowing deep inside the flared nostrils. 

“I will not tell you.” it said. “We will give our names to no man. We are the last of the free dragons. We have slept beneath the rock for years uncounted, wrapped in silk and stone, because we would not bow to any dragonlord. We still will not. And you will not catch us so easily a second time.”

Merlin looked at the dragon consideringly. Power ran through him, warming as whisky, whispering that he was strong, stronger than dragons. But at the back of his mind, the thought niggled: he had said to Arthur, ‘I don’t want power’. Arthur had believed him, and yet when the key had called to Merlin, he had forgotten it. If he was going to keep his word, he must be careful now. It would be easy, so very easy to let it carry him away. 

He looked at the power growing within himself, and he could see the danger there. Power and whisky; neither of them could be trusted as a guide.

Instead he resolved to be cautious and, as far as possible, kind. 

“I’m sorry,” he told the dragon, diplomatically. “I don’t know anything of your history, or how you came to be asleep under the mountain. How may I address you?”

The dragon gave him a long look, eyes narrowed. “Any name in the mouth of a sorcerer may prove treacherous,” it said. “You may call me dragon. Only dragon.” 

“Very well,” he said, and he kept his voice low, calming. The other dragons were still swirling overhead, and he was quite sure that although they were keeping a distance, they were well aware of all that was said. 

“I have a request, Dragon. This land is at peace. It is rich in people and cattle. I ask that you keep the peace and do not attack these people or kill their beasts. “

“Or?” the dragon asked. “When a man of power asks a favour, I expect a threat to back it.” 

“I haven’t thought of a threat,” Merlin said, honestly. “I thought I’d try asking nicely first. You’ve only just woken up. Why would you want to start a war with these humans? They’ll fight if they have to. But wouldn’t it be better to be welcomed?” 

“This is our land” the great dragon said. “Our land, from the time out of memory, before even you were born, Merlin Emrys. Do you seek to tell us what we can and cannot do in it?” Its voice was rising, and it leapt into the air, clapping the great wings together almost before Merlin’s face. 

Merlin forced himself not to flinch. He stood, unmoving, his power around him like a shield, and the dragon settled once more, raking the turf with those massive talons. 

“It’s their land too. You have slept two thousand years or more.” Merlin told it, guessing, but fairly sure it must be true. 

“Two thousand years!” the dragon sneezed like a surprised cat.

“This land has changed a great deal. And I am afraid...” he tried to think how to say it. No diplomatic words came to him, so he just blurted it out. 

“You and your people are the last of all dragons. Not just the free dragons, like you said. There are no other dragons.”

The dragon looked at him in silence. He was not sure it believed him. 

“If you force me, then I must defend the people here.” he said. “But believe me, that would be your choice, not mine. I don’t want to make you do anything. You’re creatures of pure magic! It’s wonderful! I was so happy, when I saw you fly.... it’s been so long since I saw a dragon flying. Don’t start a war of millions against seven, when you could be welcome here!”

“Millions?” the dragon said. It lifted its great head and looked at him dubiously down that great nose. Merlin could feel the struggle within it now through some magical sense for which he had no name; fear, caution, hunger, release, elation, all whirling together in a complex tangle like golden wire strung with flames. 

“Please,” he said urgently. “There were many people killed and injured when you woke and the rocks fell. They will already be afraid, soon they will be angry. Keep to the deer. There are plenty of those. Will you at least think about it?”

“You are not at all what I expected, Merlin Emrys,” the dragon said, thoughtfully. “And this is a great deal of news, which we must consider. But I shall promise you this much: that we will take no human life unless we are attacked, and we will eat deer if we can find them.”

“Thank you!” said Merlin wholeheartedly 

“There is a condition,” the dragon said, stamping one vast clawed foot. “I promise we will do this thing, if you will swear to offer us safe-conduct, and promise that you will use no magic against us. Not so much as a summoning spell will you use, nor will you bind or trick us.” 

It was Merlin’s turn to consider. “I’m not sure you understand how the world works now,” he said, reluctantly, but knowing that any hint of dishonesty now would certainly lead to disaster. “Magic is not the only risk you face here, and my powers do have limits.”

“You are the most powerful magic-worker in all this island. It was foretold, and besides, I feel it. Your safe-conduct will protect us. Give me your word.” 

Merlin hesitated. 

“Your word, sorcerer, or I withdraw the offer!” the dragon said, and spread its great wings. 

“All right,” Merlin said reluctantly. “I promise. But how can I contact you, if I cannot use a summoning spell? There’s danger coming. I’m not sure what yet, but it’s coming. You might need my help.” Or more likely, I might need yours, he thought, but did not say it out loud. 

“Send a messenger,” said the dragon, dismissively, unfurling its great wings. The sunlight slanted through them, glowing red, and then the great dragon leapt into the sky, spiralling up to join its companions, gliding over the mountain top. 

It called, just once, that wild trumpet-cry, and the other dragons turned, following their leader, formed an arrow, and headed off, south and east of where Merlin stood over the shoulder of the mountain, into the blue distance. 

*****

The rock fall had ripped through the outskirts of the village of Llanberis, leaving houses crumbled and half buried. Making his way down from the mountain, Merlin found his route blocked more than once and the footing was treacherous. 

He had to stop, to slide magical supports through the stone, locking jagged edges together. He reminded the slate how it had felt, long ago, when it was clay, malleable and sticky. Then he pushed at the confused stone inside the hill, moulding millions of shards into a whole thing, a hillside rather than a shifting heap full of sharp-edged flakes. 

It was hard work, harder than anything that he had done for many years, and once it was done he had to sit down for a few minutes and catch his breath before he could go on. He rubbed at his face and found the white beard had come back. Perhaps it was a real beard then, after all. He got up again, feeling old, and after some time, found a winding route downhill, down to what had been the level road that ran along the lakeside. 

Then he realised that somehow, he had come down on the wrong side of the landslip. The way that Arthur had gone would have taken him to the other side. He looked back up the mountain, and sighed. The thought of climbing all the way up again, finding a path through the rubble along the edge of the landslip then climbing back down half a mile away, made him feel tired and even older than the ancient stone. 

He looked speculatively at the lake. The village was quiet: presumably, most of the residents of the houses nearer the landslip had already been evacuated. Probably nobody was looking at the lake at all, at the moment. 

It would have been less work if he had still had his hat with the ‘don’t notice’ spell woven into it. But Merlin was well practiced at the art of being inconspicuous. He sat on a convenient waterside bench, which was fortunately just outside the area of the rockfall, and he quietly wove himself a new spell into the shape of a hat. 

Then he pulled it on and made his way down to the waterside. He spoke to the water about ice, then walked out onto the surface of the lake -- a nice, flat surface, pleasingly lacking in steep scrambly slopes, he thought — and walked around the landslip that way. 

He found Arthur in the wide hall of a building that had clearly been devoted to the pleasures of tourists, now pressed into service as a temporary centre for the emergency services. The bright colours of the canoes that hung outside it were dulled by dust. Inside were plastic chairs and a buzz of exhausted, strained people drinking tea under the warm glow of the electric lights, contrasting with the grey light of the overcast morning that came through the door behind him. 

Arthur leant against the wall, grey with dust, his blond hair spiked and gritty with it, talking to a curly-haired woman and a couple of tired-looking men wearing dark green uniforms that were marked and stippled with grey. They looked surprisingly cheerful, Merlin thought, chatting and laughing, and as he watched, two more people in dirty orange overalls joined the group, greeting Arthur as if they were somehow old friends. 

Merlin was fairly sure that however Arthur did this sort of thing, it wasn’t magic. It probably wasn’t even royalty. It was just him. Even when he was an arrogant young fool, he had had something that drew people to him and now almost all that youthful arrogance had worn away, leaving only the kind of man you’d want to follow anywhere. 

Camlann had been such a  _ waste _ . Merlin pulled off his hat, ran a hand across his face to chase away the wispy beard, and went over to join them. 

****

They were climbing back up the mountain footpath some time later, on their way back to collect the car. The dog, Cavall, kept pace with them, walking just behind Arthur’s heel. 

“You spoke to the dragons?” Arthur said. 

“I did. They have promised not to harm any human life. I think they’ll at least try to keep away from the sheep and cattle, too.” 

“And do you think their promise will hold?” 

“I think... I think it will. I don’t know these dragons. I’ve never heard of them before. They must have been asleep under the mountain since years before we were born. But they seemed...well... they seemed scared of me. They asked for my protection.” 

Arthur’s eyebrows went up. 

“I’ve shored up the mountain, too. No more of it will fall.” Merlin assured him. “I’ve made sure of that. And I checked for people who might be still alive under the rubble. I’m sure there’s nobody else trapped.”

“That was well done,” Arthur said, and Merlin smiled awkwardly. 

“Look, about the... the key and waking them up. I’m really sorry. I should have talked to you about it before I did anything. I will, if anything like that happens again, I promise.”

“And will  _ your  _ promise hold?”

Merlin stopped walking and looked at him. Arthur’s face had an odd, distant expression. “Do you want me to swear to it? I will if you want.” 

“I’m not sure what oath could hold a man that dragons are afraid of,” Arthur said, lightly, still with that distance in his face.

“Are  _ you _ afraid of me?” Merlin asked, and then wished he hadn’t.

And Arthur, who never admitted to being afraid of anything, said “Yes.”

Merlin turned away and looked out, across the valley and the lake, dark now under heavy grey skies. 

“I’m sorry about that, too,” he said, carefully, when the silence between them had stretched out long enough to become uncomfortable. “I’d never do anything to harm you.” 

“I do know that much. But your power — you’re like a mountain falling, all on your own. If I follow where you lead, and do what you say blindly, then I’ll be lost. And there will be no point in my being here at all.” 

“You’re my friend.” Merlin said, desperately. 

“Yes, I am,” Arthur said, meeting his eyes, steady and unwavering. “It’s lonely, holding the power of life and death, isn’t it? It sets you apart. Believe me, I know.”

“It is,” Merlin admitted. “But having magic was always lonely anyway. Like being immortal.”

“I see that.”   
  
They walked on a little way, under lowering grey skies. Merlin wanted to say more, but watching the strain on Arthur’s face, he knew it would be better to keep silent. 

Abruptly, Arthur turned to him. “The thing is, you have to give me the choice. Even when it seems like it would be just so much easier to just force your way, which, believe me, I know, is all the time. There’s a word for people who use power without choice. Tyrant. ” 

“That’s not... not what I wanted. Honestly, it isn’t.”

Arthur looked at him, a long cool thoughtful look. “Isn’t it? So if I asked you if you had ever made me act against my will, using magic, you’d say no?”

“Well... no. I mean, yes.” Merlin summoned up an awkward grin. “Though, to be fair, you made me do things I didn’t want... before.” 

“And doesn’t that look like a terrible idea, in hindsight? Still, not without knowing what you were doing. Not without any choice. That makes a difference, don’t you think? Come on Merlin, you know this. You were there with me all the time I was learning it, after all.”

Merlin looked away “It seems different when it’s me,”

“And that’s why I’m afraid.”

Merlin swallowed. “Look, I... I want to swear the oath. If you’ll accept it?”

“You swore to me before, when I was crowned... But I didn’t know who you were, then. All right then. Let’s begin again.” 

Merlin said the ancient words, there and then on the high path upon the mountain, among the yellowing bracken; the threefold oath that had been old before ever Camelot was built, before ever Rome came to the shores of Britain. 

_ “If I break faith with you, may the green earth gape and swallow me, may the grey seas roll in and overwhelm me, may the heaven of stars fall upon me and crush me out of life altogether _ .” 

There was a sheep bleating in the distance, and a small, cold wind coming down from the mountain top chilled the back of Merlin’s neck. 

Arthur looked at him, cool grey eyes considering, assessing, and finally, deciding. “ _ And I will keep faith with you and protect you _ ,” he said, which was the old answer. Then he smiled, and a reckless light came into his eye. “If I can protect an immortal sorcerer that dragons are afraid of, then I will. Come on Merlin. It’s a long steep walk back to the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole the wording of the oath and the description of it as a ‘threefold oath’ from Rosemary Sutcliff. I don’t think it entirely fits the real medieval legal device of threefold oath, but it’s cool and I wanted it. :-D


	5. Committee Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected issues such as Dragons require management.

In the long white-walled committee room, with his back to the window that gave a fine view of the Cardiff drizzle, Owen Evans, of the Environment and Sustainable Development Group, slumped back in his chair and gave his opponent a wary look through narrowed eyes. 

Red-faced Mick Jones, of Agriculture, Food and Marine, was not a man to be beaten easily. He banged on the table for emphasis. “... and I know you are all going to say it’s just sheep, but do you not realise the revenue we get from sheep? And what if it’s a child next? They have to be taken into captivity...” 

The Chief Veterinary Officer, a leathery-faced blonde woman of few words, came unexpectedly to Owen’s assistance. 

“How?” she asked curtly. 

Jones spluttered to a halt. “Well, with... tranquiliser guns. And then we will have to get the Colwyn Mountain Zoo to build a suitable enclosure...”

“You can tell me what an appropriate dose of tranquiliser would be, can you?” she said, pushing her sharp chin at the rounded figure of the Agriculture man. 

“And how to build an enclosure that will hold animals the size of a flying elephant. That can breathe fire,” Owen added, trying, and mostly failing, not to sound sarcastic. 

“Well then. We’ll just have to recommend bringing in the Army,” Jones crossed his arms and looked defiant. 

The tall thin figure of Joanne Sidoli of Tourism and Heritage unfolded itself from the chair where she had been biding her time. “Impossible!” she declared, bristling passionately. Her enormous shiny earrings glittered dramatically. “Can you imagine the tourism potential of dragons? The branding is perfect! We already have them on the flag! Extermination would be a disaster.”

Owen felt this was his cue. “I agree,” he said, sitting forward for the first time, where he might become a target. “And that’s why I’ve managed to bring in an expert.” 

“An expert?” The Chief Veterinary Officer looked as if she suddenly had a very bad smell beneath her nose. “ An expert in  _ dragons _ ?” 

“Hard to believe, I know,” he said placatingly. “But he’s the real thing. Take a look at this video, will you?”

He pressed a button and the screen at the far end of the room sprang into life. A slightly wobbly video began to play, and the sound of wind on a mountain blowing in the background filled the room. 

Whoever was holding the camera was clearly keeping low. The camera was almost on the ground, with grass and heather in closeup in the foreground. But further away, clearly recognisable, was the bright silhouette of a dragon, familiar over the past few days from news broadcasts and long-distance photographs. 

Then the camera lurched upward a little, and a small distant figure came into view, a man wearing a long dark coat, standing there in front of the dragon as if it were no more dangerous than a statue. He seemed to be speaking to it, but you could not make out the words against the hiss of background wind. The video went on for some time, hissing and mumbling, while the committee watched in astonishment the man and the dragon together on the mountainside. 

“The man in that video is my expert,” Owen said, trying hard not to sound as smug as he felt. ”Nobody knows more about real live dragons. I have arranged for him to be here today to consult with us. Shall we have him in? He’s waiting down the hall.” 

There was enough general nodding that Mick Jones puffed out his cheeks and let out a noise of reluctant agreement. The CVO let out a snort which clearly conveyed her doubts, but said no more. 

“Mr Merlin Ambrose, and his colleague,” Owen introduced them. They had agreed on this in advance, when Owen had met with Merlin and Arthur the day before. Merlin Ambrose was a name that would not draw instant scepticism, Owen felt, but Arthur Pendragon was another matter. 

Only Joanne Sidoli’s eyebrows shot up almost into her long dark hair when she heard the name. Clearly, she was not neglecting the Heritage side of her portfolio. But Sidoli was one of Owen’s old allies, he could trust her to wait and watch to see where he was going with this.

*****

Merlin looked around the long table nervously. It was strange, he thought, that now that almost everyone could afford brightly-dyed cloaks, embroidered surcoats and glittering brooches if they wanted them, the clothes that told of power were now the dull-coloured suit and plain white shirt. These were the kind of people that he had spent lifetimes avoiding. They made him feel uncomfortable. 

Arthur, of course, looked completely at home, despite his dark red polo shirt and jeans, in exactly the way that Merlin didn’t. But Sian the paramedic’s cousin Owen looked encouragingly at Merlin, and asked him to talk about dragons. There were few subjects that were closer to Merlin’s heart. 

After about five minutes, the fat red-faced one interrupted him. 

“Hang on,” he said “Are you telling us that these things are  _ intelligent _ ? They can talk?”

Merlin checked, and mentally reset his idea of the comprehension abilities of this audience. 

“Yes. They can talk. Not in English... or Welsh... They have their own language.” Merlin did not elaborate on what else that language was used for. Arthur had been firmly of the opinion that announcing that all seven dragons were likely to be powerful magic workers was almost certain to result in a decision to try to wipe them out. 

They had decided that the magic side of things would be better introduced gradually, once everyone was more used to the idea of dragons. 

“And you’re telling us you can speak this language?”

“Oh yes. I spoke to their leader, just after they woke up. At least... I think she was the leader.” Merlin qualified, trying to be honest. “Maybe she was just the bossy one.” 

Arthur quietly snorted with laughter beside him.

“Anyway, I made her promise that they wouldn’t eat any people. Or any sheep.” 

“ _ You _ made them promise?” That was the blonde woman with the stern expression. “Why do you believe they will obey your commands?”

“Well... ‘commands’ is maybe a bit strong” Merlin admitted. “I asked them not to, and they said they wouldn’t. Dragons keep their word. They’re known for it.”

“So far, we have no reports of any damage done by the dragons,” Owen added, smoothly. “You haven’t actually had any reports of sheep being killed, have you, Mick?” 

Mick Jones bristled. “I’ve had a very large number of emails and phone calls expressing concern from sheep farmers in the affected area...” 

“But no actual reports of sheep being eaten?” Owen asked, and got an impatient nod. “And we would certainly have heard if they had attacked people. They seem to be keeping to the most isolated mountain areas.”

“That’s all very well, “ said quiet Ruth Morris, of Economic Strategy, who had not spoken before. “But a hundred and twelve people died in the rockfall on Snowdon. Will people accept the... creatures that caused that flying free around the country?” 

“That wasn’t really their fault...” Merlin began, but Arthur interrupted him. 

“I was there,” he said. “Everyone trapped or injured in the second fall was rescued. Every one. It was the first fall that killed, the one before the dragons. And that was set off by the expansion of the power plant. 

He looked down at his hands for a moment. “I don’t like them much,” he admitted. “But if Merlin says they are safe, there is no better safeguard.” 

There was really no reason for them to believe him: after all, this was the first time any of them had met him. Yet somehow, because it was Arthur, they believed it, you could see their faces relax a little, even the red-faced angry one looked reassured. 

  
  


******************

“I thought that went very well, considering,” Owen said, later, as he joined them in the pub, now without a tie and with a battered leather jacket in place of his smart suit jacket. Merlin had vetoed several trendy wine bars, and had somehow managed to find an old fashioned pub still surviving among the modern glass and concrete developments of the Cardiff waterfront. 

It was quiet in the middle of the afternoon, only one old man in a wheelchair in the corner nursing a pint, and the flat screen television burbling gently to itself against the far wall: dusty scenes of devastation in some Middle-Eastern city flicked across the screen. 

Sian, with the tall black dog Cavall loping by her side, had joined them as they had left the vast red-brick building that housed the offices attached to the Welsh Senedd and made their way along the waterfront in search of refreshment. Now Cavall was tucked under the table, with his head resting on one of Arthur’s feet. 

“The report will recommend taking no action against the dragons?” Merlin asked, anxiously. 

“Yes. No need to prepare for magical war in Wales,” Owen told him. Merlin sighed with relief. 

“Yay!” said Sian, happily. 

“Yay?” Arthur asked. 

“Yes. You know. Good things have happened. Yay.” Sian explained comfortably, her dark curls bobbing. 

“You seemed to follow what they all said back there.” Merlin observed, in English. 

“Yes. None of them said ‘Yay’. ” A smile was pulling at the corner of Arthur’s mouth. 

“So now I just need to make sure that the dragons do actually keep their promise,” Merlin said, gloomily eating crisps. 

Owen looked at him “I thought dragons never broke their word.” 

“No, no, they don’t,” Merlin reassured him hastily. “Not as a general rule. ”

Arthur and Owen looked at him from both sides of the pub table. One face was dark and one was pale, but their raised eyebrows and steely eyes were surprisingly similar, Merlin thought. 

“Merlin. We told these people the dragons are safe. You assured me that they were.” Arthur said in his own language, meaningfully. 

“They are!” Merlin stuck to English where Arthur would be less reproving, if only for lack of vocabulary. “Well, they are as long as people don’t... you know...  _ start  _ anything.”

Arthur relaxed. “Provoke a living dragon? There is nobody so stupid.”

But Owen’s forehead was still marked with a frown. “I’m not too sure about that, ” he said. “People looking for trouble, excitement... the potential for provocation is definitely there.” 

“Things have changed a bit since your day,” Sian agreed. “I think people may actually be stupider now. ”

“Not really,” Merlin said absently. “Maybe more confident. People get used to being safe, they don’t expect danger any more, I think. It takes them by surprise.”

“One of these days, Merlin, I have really got to sit you down and spend about a week making you answer questions,” Sian told him. “I’ve got so much I want to ask! Like, what was Richard III really like...? Nice or nasty?”

Merlin boggled at her, unable to think what to say. 

“My dear cousin Sian has a History degree, and never forgets it,” Owen told them, spreading his hands in apologetic explanation. 

“I thought you were a paramedic?” Merlin asked her, confused. 

“Not many jobs in History, see? Not that you can make a living from and stay near your family... But I still love it. I can’t believe you lived through it all! The Tudors and the Age of Sail and the first World War and everything. I don’t know what to ask first!”

“Oh. Um.” Merlin said, embarrassed. “It was less interesting than it seems on TV, honestly. Also, I spent most of it in Somerset. It’s not really a hub of affairs.” 

“Didn’t you get bored, staying in one place?” Sian’s brown eyes sparkled with mischief “You’d think in all that time you’d take some time off and go and visit Italy, or India or somewhere.” 

“Well, you know how it is. Looking back, there would have been plenty of time but everything seems so urgent when you’re in the middle of it. And I’d never have heard the last of it if he...” Merlin nodded at Arthur “... had woken up and I’d been off on a holiday.”

Owen leant back in his chair. “So now the immediate crisis is dealt with, what more can you tell me? Should we be planning for other creatures of myth to return?”

“I hope not!” Sian pulled a face. “If the Mari Lwyd comes to life I’m leaving Wales. That thing is scary.” 

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “A horse’s skull on a stick and a white sheet that they take around carol singing at Christmas,” she explained. She fiddled with her phone and displayed a photo. “Horrible thing!”

Merlin peered at it, then shook his head. “I doubt it. I’d say that’s a costume, not a creature. But there might be other things.”

“Such as?”

Merlin shrugged helplessly. “I can’t say. Ghosts, perhaps? They sleep lightly at the best of times.”

Owen groaned and ran a hand down his face. “Ghosts. Fine. We need a ghost strategy. There’s words I never thought I’d say.”

Arthur grinned at him. “Easier than dragons.”

Sian pulled an exaggeratedly astonished face. “Are they? At least the dragons are up in the mountains! Ghosts...in towns? In homes? That’s not going to go down well.”

“I don’t know if it will be ghosts,” Merlin said. “I don’t know what we are facing. Not yet. Up there on the mountain, it felt as though the land was waking. In Glastonbury, all around the Tor, too. Magic... sort of fizzing. I felt like I had to move carefully in case... I don’t know what. In case I left an imprint on the world without even meaning it. But not here. Here by the sea, the land is sleeping still.” 

“That’s something. Thank god the cities are on the coast,” Owen said. 

“Thank god...” Sian scrunched up her nose thoughtfully. “God. If there’s going to be firebreathing mythology flapping around and ghosts everywhere, what about all the saints? Full of saints, Wales.” She looked speculatively at Arthur. “Difficult question, but do you believe in God? I thought you’d be much more religious than a lot of people are now. All the Holy Grail stuff. Fighting against the heathen Saxons. Though... I’m not too sure how Merlin fits into that.”

“No,” Merlin said. “Nor am I. I never have been — though a good many saints and churchmen have been much more sure than I am, down through the years.” He looked around at the faces that suddenly seemed distant and other: the faces of people without sorcery, each with only one face, that fitted effortlessly into a version of the world that had no room for Merlin. Even Arthur: out of time, but not out of place among them by his very nature. “I’m not the Devil’s son, in case you were wondering,” he told them. 

“Oh. Good.” Sian gave him a smile that was surprisingly friendly, and Merlin felt a sudden sense of warmth at the tolerance of the twenty-first century. Though, Arthur had rolled his eyes as if the very idea of Merlin the Devil’s child was absurd, and that was good, too. 

Arthur said “ “God... or powers or  _ something  _ has... Merlin, what is meddled?” Merlin supplied the English word and he went on “has meddled with my life more than enough to show they... it... exists. Here I am, hundreds of years after I should have died, and even the most powerful sorcerer in the world has no real idea how I got here or for that matter, how come he’s not dead himself.” 

“I have a few ideas,” Merlin put in. “But no, I’m not sure.”

“But anyone who wants to stay sane wants to stay out of their way. I’m certainly not asking for favours. Only dealing with things as they come along.”

Owen laughed. “Now _that_ sounds like life in local government. So, what will you do now? We could use your help on the dragons, though budgets are always a problem, of course. There’s probably an argument for dipping into the Agriculture budget.”

Merlin looked at Arthur. 

“We’ll give what help we can, and then go back to Somerset,” Arthur decided. “That’s where I woke. It seems as good a place as any to wait for whatever comes next.”


	6. The Witches of Oxford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains occultists, the promised Arthur in M&S pyjamas, a certain cavalier skimping over archaeological processes, career planning and the Sea. Also I posted a day early, because last week I was a day late and anyway days are meaningless between Christmas and New Year.

Somewhere in Oxford, in a long white-walled room with small ugly tinted windows filled with orange plastic chairs, the Fellowship of the Heart of Fire was meeting. 

“Late as usual, Rachel?” Craig’s voice was friendly but reproving. Rachel muttered an apology and slid into a chair at one end of the long table, trying to look inconspicuous. Dratted bicycle tyres! Why did they always have to let her down when she was late anyway? She’d have to take the bike in to get the inner tube replaced tomorrow.

Twelve of them were seated at the table already, men and women of varying ages, some in hand-knitted jumpers in rich jewel tones, with long skirts or jeans, some wearing their office clothes from earlier in the day. Someone slid Rachel a plastic cup of mulled wine, and she took a grateful sip. They always had mulled wine at meetings, warmed in a pan on a portable electric ring, or a little camping gas stove when there were outside doing a working. It was not strong stuff but pleasantly spiced and warming. 

Hilda, the High Leader of the Fellowship, looked as though she had come direct from yet another garden party, in a pastel pink trouser suit. She wasn’t actually wearing a hat, but she had the distinct air of having only recently removed some wide-brimmed confection from her perfectly-styled blonde head. 

Rachel was not entirely sure what Hilda did for a living — something to do with university fundraising, she thought — but whatever it was, it seemed to involve a great deal of attending garden parties in exquisite suits. 

Rachel had begun coming to the meetings out of curiosity. She had spotted a little box ad in the corner of the Daily Information newsheet, offering ‘Insight into the Western Mysteries’. But she had stayed mostly because of Hilda. Hilda was fifteen years older than Rachel, and Rachel thought she might be secretly a little bit in love with her already. There was something about the confidence of her, the way she seemed to really know exactly what to do in any given situation, that Rachel found compelling. 

“Today, “ Hilda began, in her low, exciting voice, “I want to talk about how we can develop our vital work on the mysteries to protect Britain. With the threat of terrorist attacks in the news, I think we should take further precautions. Magical precautions. To protect us all!” 

“Magical precautions?” someone asked.

“When you say protect us all, do you mean...?” someone else interrupted.

Hilda straightened proudly. “During the Second World War, there were people working on the Higher Planes to help fight the Nazis. The Nazis were using occult powers to support Hitler’s invasion plans, so they — the occult powers here in Britain — raised power around the land to protect it. ” Everyone nodded. This was well known to all of them.

“It seems to me that today we face a threat that is, in a way similar on the spiritual level, if not on the physical plane. I’ve looked into how that war-time working was done, and I think we should begin work on something similar for the terrorism threat today. To keep out invading forces, and so on. There was a combination of meditation and rituals...”

“There were a lot more of them working on it than there are of us though,” said Taran, a big gloomy looking man with a black beard. He always seemed to see the downside of any idea, and everything seemed difficult to him. Rachel sometimes thought it was as if he was walking around inside a dark damp cloud of his own making. 

“Yes, there were,” Hilda acknowledged, smiling and accepting the interjection gracefully. “But then, they were up against the forces of the Third Reich. Mass invasion by armies poised across the Channel, and organised occult powers striking against every aspect of their inner being. Thanks be, our problems are different. 

“We certainly have problems,” Craig acknowledged, in his soft Scottish accent. “Feels like there’s nowhere that’s really safe any more.”

Hilda nodded. “Compared to the witches of the twentieth century, we may now have a new advantage, too. Or may be a very old one. Rachel is going to tell us about it.”

Rachel sat forward. This was her moment: to contribute to the Fellowship and impress Hilda too. She could feel herself starting to blush.  _ No. Don’t blush. Quiet, skin. No need to make a fuss _ , she told her face silently, and then took a breath and began. 

“I’ve been working on some archaeological finds that came in from a dig recently. I work at the Museum Resource centre, out near Witney, you know? Most of the finds that aren’t on display or that need conservation get put into storage out there.

“So, recently we had this very early stuff come in. Really, really old. Way older than the city. Amazingly old. Wooden bits and pieces. All found in anaerobic layers underneath what they think was a medieval farm. It’s being redeveloped to make a car park, apparently. So this was, like, a rescue dig?

“This wooden stuff, it was all black and wet, but there were bits of wax in there as well, which is kind of exciting because.. You know, the Romans used to write on wax. But the really amazing thing, I thought, was this little bundle of stuff that didn’t have any wax on it. I looked at it, and I just had this vibe that it wasn’t just woodshavings, it had something about it. I just looked at it, and I was like ‘Hello, wooden slats!’ and they were all: ‘ HELLO RACHEL!’ “ 

“They called to you? How fascinating!” Hilda said, although she’d heard most of the story before. 

“They did!” Rachel agreed, eagerly. “So, it all has to go into storage to be conserved and be properly looked at, of course. But I asked if I could do these wooden bits. Get them documented and accessioned and stowed away, you know? And while I was doing it, I thought I’d take some infra-red shots of them. Sometimes stuff shows up if you take infra-red photos, that you can’t really see if you’re just looking at it in normal light. No budget to get it properly photographed yet, but I’ve got this camera I converted to take infra-red pics, so why not, right?”

She looked along the table, and got the feeling that not everyone was following her as closely as she’d hoped. But Hilda was nodding enthusiastically, and that was the main thing. 

“So, once I played around in Photoshop a bit, I could see this:” She got out the prints from her bag, and handed them along. “It’s not been officially confirmed or announced or anything yet, but I got a medievalist I know to take a look at it for me. It’s super exciting! The lettering is in a Latin script, but the language isn’t Latin, not most of it, anyway. It’s a bit broken along the top here, and down the side, but you can see, there’s a note in Latin along the top that says what it is, and the rest of it is early Saxon. It’s a spell for protection! A really old one that nobody had any idea about till now!”

That got through to them. There were murmurs of surprise and approval. They scrutinised the printouts, marked with blots and blurs as they were, with great interest. 

“So,” Hilda picked up the story again. “I think we should use this wonderful discovery as part of our working. I have the strongest sense that this has been sent to us at this time for a reason.”

“It must be!” Pat said. She was a large lady, dressed in a brilliant jumper patterned with shades of turquoise and sea-blue and a long paisley-pattern skirt. She held the printout up to the light, as if offering it to some unseen power. Rachel realised after a moment that she was trying to read the text. 

“I can’t read it,” complained Taran, more direct. 

“Well, it is very very old, I believe reading such documents is something of a specialist skill,” Hilda told him. “ But I’m sure now we have such excellent photos to work from...” 

“I’ll clean it up and transcribe a copy into a more readable form,” Rachel promised. “It’s not all that long. I just haven’t had the chance to do it yet.”

“So, are we all agreed?” Hilda asked “We’ll work to raise power to activate the ancient protections of the land, and we’ll use this amazing discovery as part of our working. Next Saturday, perhaps? Can everyone make it if we meet at five?” 

There was no dissent. Everyone was keen to join in with the new working, excited about the spell that none of the great names of European occultism had known anything about. There was a feeling of purpose, a feeling that they were doing something really important, something that would make a difference to the world. There were nods of approval and the odd ‘well done’ from around the table. 

Rachel felt, for the first time, that she had contributed something important to the Fellowship, that she was a full, respected member of the group. She left the meeting with a spring in her step, and a glow to her that was not just down to the mulled wine. 

That evening, at a desk that smelled of books and furniture polish, under an elaborate neoclassical arch inside the Radcliffe Camera building, which is where Oxford University keeps some of its more accessible history and archaeology books, Rachel scowled darkly at her laptop screen. Even with the infrared photographs, and carefully cross referencing with photos of other ancient documents, the spell was not easy to render into a comprehensible final version. 

It was not like the early Anglo Saxon charters reproduced in the books scattered open on the desk. Those were neatly made out in uniform text by some professional scribe. The content of the wooden tablets shown in her photos were more like hastily scribbled handwriting. And the surface was pocked and speckled with marks and blotches that might mean something, or might not. 

She scribbled a few letters into her notebook in pencil. Was that an R, or an N? Or did that dot mean it was actually an I? She had worked on old documents before, but this was something else. 

Probably you needed to be a real specialist to get it right. 

Maybe even a specialist could never be entirely sure that they had got it right... 

But for a spell, it wasn’t essential to get it completely accurate. It was not as though she was trying for a perfect copy of the original. After all, it would be impossible to be sure about pronunciation, and anyway, if she did make a transcription error, nobody would know. The most important thing was to try to get a sense for the thing as a whole, and make a connection with the Inner Planes. She would be guided to the correct interpretation. Hilda had said so. 

She frowned at the photo in front of her, and made more notes.

****

Insubstantial trailing streamers of mist streamed past Merlin, racing through a world that was grey and vague under dark clouds. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a roaring sound, like wind in the treetops of some great forest. 

Then the mist parted before him. The sound was not wind in the treetops. It was the sound of the open sea. Grey waves heaved like moving hills of water, veined with foam, each greater than the last, surging up towards him, unstoppable. 

He tried to step back from the rising water, but he found he could not move. Caught into inaction, he could only watch as the water roared and rose, crashing against the cliff face below him. At last there came one vast wave, dark at the heart, and stronger than dragons, which came rolling in until it towered high above him. Then it came crashing down. The world dissolved into a turmoil of dark water and Merlin was lost, unable to determine direction. He shouted, a loud wordless cry. 

He woke, surprised to find his mouth was not full of salt water, in the familiar white-walled bedroom of his house in Glastonbury. It was early morning, from the light, and outside birds were singing. His throat was sore. He coughed. 

Arthur crashed into the room, sword in hand, still in his Marks and Spencer paisley pattern pyjamas. He glanced around rapidly and then lowered the sword. 

“Dreaming again, Merlin?” 

“I’d have thought you’d have given up rushing to the rescue by now,” Merlin said, embarrassed. 

“And how stupid would that be, if this time it really is the start of something major? Losing focus because of false alarms is a novice’s mistake.” 

“Well... thanks,” Merlin said, getting out of bed. He half expected the floor to be wet with sea-water, but the rag rug by the bed felt as dry as usual. He reached for clothes. 

“Did the dream tell you anything new?” Arthur asked, half-way out of the door.

“The sea again. It feels like a true seeing, a warning. But there’s no detail to get hold of.” 

Merlin pulled on a jumper, coughed again to dislodge the sharp and bitter memory of sea-water in his throat, and set off down the stairs. Cafall, curled into an improbable shape on the saggy pink velveteen sofa, gave a single welcoming wag of the tail at the sight of him. 

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

Warmed by coffee, a thought came to Merlin. 

“ _ You _ haven’t had any dreams that might be ... meaningful?” 

I don’t think so.” Arthur said, buttering toast at the kitchen table. “Why would I? I’m not magic.” 

“I just wondered. It was you who had the ...connection to the dragons, not me. And it’s you that was kept in enchanted sleep until you were needed. Prophetic dreams are kind of normal for me, but it might be that it’s your dreams that are more likely to be significant, not mine.”

“I don’t remember my dreams, as a general rule, “ Arthur considered, swigging his tea. ”Oh, I dreamed about the dragons. But that’s not exactly surprising is it? We’ve been dealing with nothing else for weeks.”

Merlin nodded. “Things seem to be finally settling down over there though,” He slid bacon into the pan with a practiced hand. 

“Oh yes. I still can’t quite believe that everyone in Wales now has a copy of that ‘Be Safe around Dragons’ leaflet we wrote. In Welsh and English, of course.” Arthur laughed. “I can’t believe they can all read! Universal literacy! It’s incredible. And I never thought they’d agree to fund the.. the  _ printing _ , after all the fuss about which budget should pay for it. After all, there are only so many ways to say ‘Don’t mess with dragons or they’ll kill you’ ”

“You were very convincing about the tourism benefits. You were right, too. Sian tells me that the leaflets are all over this social media thing they all use now. ” Merlin gave in to the round brown eyes regarding him solemnly from under the table, and fed Cavall a bacon rind. 

“Owen says the compensation rates for venison farmers finally did get agreed in the end,” Arthur said, layering bacon on bread. 

“That wasn’t my fault,” Merlin protested “Who knew they would be farming  _ deer _ , of all things? I had no idea. I thought, tell ‘em to eat deer, they are wild animals, that’s bound to cause less fuss than if they eat sheep, right?”

“You’re the twenty-first century expert, Merlin.”

Merlin, mouth full of bacon and bread, shrugged, “After a while,” he said indistinctly “it seems like as soon as you get used to a century, a new one comes along.” 

“In our time you didn’t need to farm deer,” Arthur observed. “They just happened. Like... trees. Or clouds.” 

"New times, new ideas. It’s inevitable, I suppose. ” Merlin sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Merlin, you sound like an old man.”

“I am the oldest man there has ever  _ been _ ” Merlin said, trying for dignity. “I’ve seen things invented that they’ve forgotten there were ever words for, now.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Really.” 

“Well, I’ve probably forgotten most of them myself, if I’m honest, “ Merlin confessed “But still.”

“Nice for you,” Arthur smiled ruefully. “New times, new ideas. I’ve been thinking about that. If this .... whatever it is, does not turn up soon, I suppose I shall have to find something to do with myself. I can’t stay here forever doing nothing, as your guest.” 

“You’re very welcome to stay,” Merlin said, surprised. “For as long as you like. Of course you are. You’re my king. I’m pretty sure there’s some law that I’m supposed to offer you accommodation as long as you want it.” He grinned. 

Arthur smiled back, but the smile did not reach his eyes “Except that I’m not, any more, am I? No need for a spare king or even a spare knight, now. Not any more.”

“It’s only been a few weeks. You’ve had a lot to adjust to.” Merlin told him, rinsing out the mugs. “How’s your side?”

“Better. More itching than hurting. I think it’s finally healing.” 

“You should at least let it heal properly before you make plans. There’s no rush.” 

“No rush for you. You have all the time there is. But I’m thirty years old...” he held up a hand before Merlin could interrupt “... excluding enchanted sleep, which doesn’t count. I only have one lifetime. I’ve grieved for Guinevere, but damnit, it would be easier if I had  _ any _ thing else to do!”

Arthur pushed his feet angrily into trainers and yanked awkwardly on the laces. 

“Everything I had built in my life is gone. I started training with a sword when I was five, and now, what good is it? I keep thinking if I have to start again, do something else, I need to get on with it. Sian tells me that her paramedic training took three years. ” 

“You’re thinking of training as a paramedic?” Merlin asked, startled. 

“I don’t know. But I’m achieving nothing here.” Arthur went to the door. Cavall leapt hopefully up and rushed after him, anticipating a run. 

****

He had a hand on the door handle when they heard it: a deep sound, a shudder of the ground as if a mountain had fallen. Merlin reeled, grabbing at the back of a chair for support. An acrid smell of magic gone awry filled his nostrils. Arthur whirled, hand on his sword hilt. Cavall’s eyes rolled, showing the whites, and he backed away from the front door, barking, shoulders hunched. 

“What the hell was...” Arthur began, but Merlin was already pulling the back door open and striding out, eyes raised to the grey cloudy sky over the distinctive shape of Glastonbury Tor. There was no visible sign of anything wrong, but all across the town, dogs were barking, and alarms were wailing. Closer, from the hedge, a blackbird shrilled a panicked alarm call. 

“Something just happened. There’s something...” he made a frantic gesture with his hands, unable to find the word. “Skew-whiff.”

Arthur followed him out of the door “ _ Skew-whiff _ ? Is that really a word?” 

Then the wave hit him, green, swirling, suffocating. Merlin could still see the garden around him, the mossy stone walls, the roofs of the houses, untouched, and he could hear Arthur’s voice. His eyes and ears reported nothing unusual. But his other sense, the sense that let him shape matter and call stone to life -- that was far underwater, so deep that it was dark and chillingly cold. He tried to call his magic around himself, and felt it move sluggishly, as if he were struggling against a strong current. Then something terrible and unseen brushed against him, slimy and fearfully strong. He recoiled, panting. 

He could feel Arthur gripping his shoulder, saying something, but it was hard to hear when he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, when there was something out there in the dark, over there in the east, something old and strong and utterly inhuman.

“Merlin! _Merlin!_ ” a faint thread of sound moving and rippling through the current. He caught hold of it, automatically using magic to reinforce his hold — and was swept tumbling away, down into the cold and the dark. Panic was rising. He could feel his lungs working, and yet there was no air. 

He clamped down on the panic, holding it gently yet firmly, like some small terrified animal, closed his eyes and began again to look for some way back. 

Deliberately avoiding word or thought of magic, he went back to the most basic level of his being, the blood flowing, his heart beating. He felt outwards, blind and deaf, using only his sense of touch, to the weight and warmth of Arthur’s hand on his shoulder, the solid ground beneath his feet, beneath his knees. At some point he must have knelt, although he could not remember doing so. If he was kneeling, he could not be floating underwater. He controlled his lungs, slower, slower, forced them to expand, contract fully, controlled the frantic panting for air. 

Then he risked listening. The world sounded fainter, fuzzier, without magical intervention, but he could hear his own breath, and the blackbird in the hedge, still shouting a sharp alarm. One of his hands was on the ground, and a sharp piece of gravel was cutting into the palm. He lifted his hand, still with eyes closed, and touched his face. It felt warm, human. 

“It’s coming in,” he said, and his voice sounded cracked and strange in his own ears “It’s almost there.”

“What is? What are you talking about?” Arthur’s voice, clearer now. 

“The sea.” 

“You’re babbling, Merlin. We’re miles inland.”

Merlin’s eyes were still closed. He did not dare to open them. “Someone.” he said carefully, trying not to think too hard about his breathing. “Or something, has called on the sea. It’s coming. It’s coming now. And there’s something else. Something darker. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t....”

“Can’t what?” 

“Can’t see it yet.” Merlin managed to finish, and dared to open his eyes, just a little. He could see a strange double world, layered together: Arthur and the dog Cavall in the garden in Glastonbury, and interleaved with it, a world of greenish darkness, lit dimly from above. Now and then, there was a menacing movement in the shadows. As he turned his head to follow the movement, the darkness and the sense of disorientation grew. He closed his eyes again, hurriedly. 

“You’re freezing” Arthur told him. “Come inside.” He pulled Merlin to his feet by one arm. Merlin’s head swam, and he realised that he was shivering uncontrollably. Arthur hauled him inside and dumped him onto the saggy pink sofa. Cavall pulled his long legs onto the seat next to him, and curled himself into a round warm ball of a dog by Merlin’s side. 

“Right. Tell me what you can see” Arthur said, draping a blanket over his shoulders. 

“It’s like everything is underwater. Cold. A current, pulling. And there’s a darkness,” Merlin flapped a hand, without opening his eyes. “Darkness all around, but most of all, that way. That’s where it’s coming from. That’s the centre of it all.” 

“You said someone had called it? Who? “ 

“Don’t know. Can’t look. If I look at it, it’ll pull me under. It knows... It knows I can see it. I don’t know if it cares, but it’ll drown me anyway.” 

Merlin could hear Arthur moving about, but he did not dare open his eyes to see what he was doing. “How on earth could anyone call the sea anyway?” Arthur asked, from somewhere over near the kitchen. 

The question made Merlin laugh a half-choking laugh. “Very, very carefully.” he said, with feeling. 

“Makes sense. Right then. I’ve got together some supplies. I’m going to look for it.” 

“Not on your own, you aren’t.”

“Merlin, don't be absurd. You can barely stand up!”

“Give me... a minute.” Merlin said. He was feeling stronger now, although the current was still tugging at him, he felt a little warmer, less because of the blanket than because of the thought that had put it around his shoulders . 

He centered himself on his heart again, and concentrated, using magic cautiously, so cautiously, through touch and feel alone, without sight or sound or any spell with words. He made a sphere of warmth, strong, impermeable, smooth to the touch as a carved quartz crystal, and pushed it out a little, very gently, almost imperceptible in movement, to make a small space, a safe space around his own body. So far, so good. 

He spoke a single word, silently to himself. It lit the inside of the sphere with a spirit fire, smokeless, consuming only itself. He could still feel the dark water outside, and the currents pulling, but he himself was anchored and safe. The fire warmed the dark crystal of the sphere in his mind’s eye, creating a bright space like a round cave. He took a moment to gather himself, and then reached out.

He cautiously opened his right eye, and was pleased to see the familiar room looking its ordinary self, with Arthur looking sceptically at him. Emboldened, he opened the left eye, and was suddenly plunged into freezing darkness, a place of terrible pressure. His mouth filled with the taste of salt. Hastily he closed both eyes and retreated, back into the circle of warm clear stone. It seemed to be holding. Good. He pushed out again. 

“Well, that’s interesting.” He put his hand over the left eye, as a kind of insurance. “I can block it out, more or less, as long as I only use my right eye. Can you look under the sink? There should be a box in there, with some stretchy bandage in it. If something happens, I don’t want to open that eye by accident.”


	7. On the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin is not feeling his best. Arthur takes charge. Featuring the Heroic Dark Age Monarch approach to driving in modern Britain.

Half an hour later, one eye hidden in a makeshift eyepatch made of bandages, Merlin walked cautiously down the lane to the spot where the the old blue Volvo was parked.

“I’m not sure I should be driving” he said, looking doubtfully at the car. Arthur firmly opened the passenger door. 

“Get in.” he said. “I’ll drive. If we’re going to crash at some unnatural speed in that contraption, I’d prefer it to happen because I made a mistake, rather than because you suddenly think you’re at the bottom of the ocean being eaten by a whale.” 

Merlin felt that probably he should argue, but the words were swimming away from him a little, so in the end, he simply folded into the seat and resolved to die quietly. Cavall leapt into the back seat, wagging enthusiastically, and Arthur dumped a pile of bags next to the dog. Then he took off his sword belt and pushed the sword into the passenger footwell next to Merlin’s knees, so that the hilt stuck up next to the gearstick, carefully checking that the sword was loose enough in its scabbard to be drawn at need. 

Arthur fought briefly with the gear lever, and won. There was an alarming grinding noise, a jerk, and the Volvo set off. It was a good thing the roads were quiet, Merlin thought, as they roared in a manner more heroic than economical towards the main road. 

Arthur stood abruptly on the brake. The Volvo shuddered and stalled. Half-way through the hedge that ran along the road in front of them, tipped perilously into the ditch, was a car, a small red Nissan. 

Arthur flung the door of the Volvo open and ran to the other car. Merlin got out rather more cautiously and followed him. In the distance, over the town centre, he could hear alarms still wailing. The driver of the Nissan, a small dark woman in a long red dress, was hunched in her seat, the deflated airbag draped over the steering wheel and her lap. Arthur pulled the door open and quickly checked her pulse, looking for obvious injuries. 

“She’s breathing,” he reported. 

Merlin peered over his shoulder with his one working eye. There was no blood, no obvious sign of injury, and although the front of the car was deeply embedded in the hedge, it did not look badly damaged. The woman’s eyes were closed. 

“Let me look,” Merlin said. There was something familiar about the woman. He thought he had seen her in the town, perhaps, but he could not remember her name. He gently pulled back one of her eyelids, and saw the eye react before it snapped closed again. A cold current rocked him, and he recoiled. 

“I hoped this wasn’t going to happen.” he told Arthur. “She’s caught in it too. She must have some innate talent in magic, enough to see it. It’s sucked her in... Poor thing. Even if she’s not physically injured, she must be paralysed with terror. I wonder how many others...” 

“Can you help her?” 

“I doubt it. But let’s see.” He took her hand, crouching beside the car, closed his working eye, and reached out across the bridge of flesh. He could faintly feel a presence. There was someone in there, cowering away from the cold, the terrible pressure. He tried to reach out, but he found the insulating sphere of magical stone was not only a barrier against the sea. He could not make contact on any level that the woman could comprehend. Somewhere inside, she was drifting deep in the coiling current of some distant, shoreless sea, and Merlin could not reach her. 

Merlin shook his head. He opened his one eye, and saw Arthur, looking worried. “Merlin, we can’t stay to look after her. We have to get to the centre of this,” he said urgently. 

“I know, I know. There are probably hundreds of people in the same state. Maybe thousands. We have to go that way,” he pointed. “It’s in that direction. Getting stronger. But we can’t just drive away. What if she’s bleeding internally?”

Arthur looked around frantically. A parcel delivery van was approaching. He ran into the road and waved it down. Fortunately, the driver, a man named Dave, turned out to be both quick on the uptake and carrying a phone. 

“My friend there is hurt,” Arthur explained, not quite lying, but indicating the bandage over Merlin’s eye. “I can’t wait with her. Can you stay?”   
  
Leaving Dave to await the ambulance, they hurried on. 

There were other signs that this was not quite a normal September day. They passed three more cars, crashed by the side of the road, one with an ambulance already in attendance, the other two festooned with ‘police aware’ tape. 

In Shepton Mallet another ambulance overtook the Volvo, flashing blue and wailing a warning. As Arthur drove past the leafy outskirts of Frome, having finally settled on leaving the Volvo in fourth gear, they passed a supermarket surrounded by fire-engines, with smoke rising from it.

“ _ That _ can’t be connected, surely,” Arthur said as the sirens faded behind them. “I can’t feel anything at all. Not since that first... earthquake or whatever it was.” 

“Lucky you,” Merlin said tersely. Arthur dared only the quickest of looks at him, lest the Volvo should misbehave if he took his eyes off the road. Merlin looked pale and strained under the bandage. 

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m strong. I can hold on. But there are a lot of people around here with vestiges of magic. Glastonbury Tor tends to draw them here. They may not even realise they have it, but anyone with enough talent to see or hear the other levels is trapped now.”

“In that case, who made the fire?”

“I’m guessing that someone panicked when they felt it coming. It’s cold, it’s wet. If you were going to try to use magic against it, you might try fire. ”

“Someone tried to fight it? That’s brave.” Arthur was impressed. 

“Brave but stupid. Magic only makes things worse. You can’t fight the sea. It would be like... like if you tried to kill the tide coming in, with a sword. Nothing changes and you’d end up very wet and tired. Anyway, if whoever it was made a fire on this level, where the fire engines are, they missed it completely. It’s not  _ here _ yet.” 

They came to another roundabout. Negotiating it required Arthur’s full attention. 

“Still going the right way?” 

“Yes. East. East and North.”

When they came to the M4 motorway, Arthur circled the junction twice, alarmed at the sheer number and speed of vehicles that were suddenly sharing the road with the Volvo. Cars had seemed much less alarming when Merlin was driving, or even when the main risk was that he might accidentally clip a hedge. But there was no way out of it: there was only one road going where they needed to go. He gripped the wheel, took a deep breath, and headed down onto the motorway. 

Arthur was quite clear that he had fought in battles much less terrifying than this matter of conducting a fragile shell of metal and glass through six lanes of traffic at twice the speed of a horse at full gallop, but his passengers, both canine and human, seemed unconcerned. In fact, a glance in the rear view mirror confirmed that both of them seemed to have gone to sleep. 

“Merlin,” he said, as they passed the first sign to Swindon, careful to sound calm, although his palms were sweating on the steering wheel. “Which way now?” 

Merlin did not respond. Arthur swore under his breath, a curse many centuries old, cautiously peeled a hand from the steering wheel, and prodded him. 

“Which way?” 

To his relief, Merlin opened his working eye. “Feels like we’re going too far South,” he reported. “Take this next exit. North.” 

Arthur did so with great relief. 

Twenty-five miles further, along a tree-lined road running through flat, well-tended meadows, where cloud-shadows rushed across the long grass, Arthur noticed the sound of Merlin breathing, short, rapid breaths as if he had been running for a long time. Arthur pulled the car off the main path of the road, and braked. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. There was a long pause before Merlin answered. 

“It’s getting stronger. Very strong here.... It’s so dark out there. Cold.”

There was a long pause, but just as Arthur began to reply, Merlin said, “We’re getting near.” 

Cavall’s long black nose reached over the back of Merlin’s seat, and he nosed Merlin’s ear in concern. 

“Can you go on?” 

“Not sure. Probably. Where... where are we?” 

Arthur peered at the map. “Cumnor.”

“Can’t be much further. The middle of it.”

“Oxford.” Arthur read the name of the next town from the map. He looked at Merlin. “If it gets to you, I’ll have absolutely no idea what I’m looking for, you know.” 

“Good point.” Merlin pulled himself into a more upright position in the seat. It seemed to require more effort than normal. “Give me the map. I’ll see if I can pin it down.” 

“I thought you said working magic made it worse?” Arthur said, holding onto the map. 

“Also a good point. Look, I’ve built a sort of...refuge. You can’t see it, it’s not quite on this level. Like the sea. I can still retreat inside. Fairly sure that nothing can touch me there. But. Once I do that, I’m stuck in there, and no use to you. I won’t be able to communicate without opening the door.”

“Hmm. So if you use magic to get me some directions, you can hide in this... refuge, afterwards?” 

“I think I’d have to do that soon, anyway” Merlin said, looking troubled. “I didn’t think it would be this strong. I’m struggling to hold on, out here.”

“Right,” Arthur said, dubiously. But it was clear that something was happening to Merlin. He was still breathing shallowly and frequently, and now he was shivering visibly too. 

“I’m not sure what it will look like... here. On the outside. I might vanish. Or, it might look like I’m unconscious, I’m not sure. I’ll try and do that, if I can. That way, if... if the tide goes out, you’ll know where to find me...”

“So, if you’re going to be out of it, what do I do when I get there?” 

Merlin looked infuriatingly apologetic. “No idea,” he said. “I don’t know who or how. You’re the one... woken from sleep by some higher power to deal with this. If you don’t know, how should I?”

“And you’re reasonably sure doing magic isn’t going to end up with you getting... washed away or whatever happened to that woman in the red car?”

“Reasonably sure,” Merlin said, although he did not look very sure. 

“Very well then,” Arthur made the decision, handing Merlin the map. “Do it.”

Merlin took it and looked at him. “But.. be tactful, all right? Whatever you find. Magic users. They can be touchy.” 

“Touchy? I’m not a complete idiot, Merlin.”

Merlin grinned at him “I know. That’s why you’re going to get us out of this.”

Merlin’s hand hovered over the map. “This is a  _ lot  _ easier to do with bees,” he complained. His hand moved vaguely across Oxford, over the city centre, and seemed to get stuck. Arthur could see his hand shaking with effort. Merlin pushed the bandage away from his left eye, and opened it, staring fixedly at the map. 

His finger moved further east, to just outside the road that ran in a misshapen loop around the city, and stopped. 

“There,” he said. Both eyes closed, and he slumped in his seat, silent but thankfully, still visible

Arthur checked Merlin’s pulse. It was very slow, but it was still there, at least. He took a long look at the map, memorising the route, and checked the sword was where he could reach it. 

“Right then, Cavall,” he said to the tall hound on the back seat. “Ready to hunt dark magic without a clue what to do when we find it?” He could see the dog’s toothy grin, reflected in the rear view mirror. Arthur sighed. “No, nor am I, “ he said, and forced the Volvo into gear. 

****

Oxford was a baffling city, full of narrow lanes, large red buses, no entry signs, traffic cones, bus lanes and bicycles. Arthur drove in increasingly frustrated circles until he found himself passing the mound that was mysteriously labelled ‘Oxford Castle’ for the third time. 

“You know what, Cavall? I don’t think it’s actually possible to drive through this place without ignoring at least one of these signs.” 

He turned the car until it was pointing more or less due east by the sun, and just drove, ignoring the beeping horns of buses and rude gesticulations of cyclists, until at last the Volvo passed a tall sandstone tower and over a long white bridge; the sort of bridge the Romans would probably have built, if Oxford had existed when they were here in Britain. 

On the far side were smaller shops and red-brick houses and roads that seemed more welcoming to the Volvo. At last, Arthur found himself making a way along a lane so narrow that the hedges brushed the side of the car as he drove. 

Old Road, the signpost said, and Arthur frowned at it, checking the sword was ready to his hand. “I bet you aren’t,” he told the signpost as he drove past it. “I bet you’re younger than me.”

The tarmac of Old Road ended at a gravelled car park, with a scattering of cars parked here and there around it. Arthur glanced quickly around. He could see a couple of women who were clearly out for a stroll with their dogs, and a small child on a short-legged shaggy pony being led by a groom. Nothing at all suspicious or menacing. Or magical. He looked again at the map. It was hard to be sure exactly where the spot was that Merlin’s finger had pointed out, but he must be close. Whatever he was looking for, it was not far away. 

He parked the Volvo in a corner by a hedge, so that Merlin, slumped in the passenger seat, would not be too obvious to people passing by, and then hesitated, looking at his sword. He was not sure whether the protection that Merlin had set on it would still be effective. The few weeks that he had spent in this century had been enough to bring home to him that a man who openly wore a sword in public was likely to attract trouble. But it was all he had. He buckled it into place and felt better for it. 

Cavall leaped out of the car, tail waving enthusiastically, lifted his leg and began to sniff. This place seemed very much to his liking, and he at least seemed quite untroubled by any ghostly ocean. 

“Come on then, Cavall,” Arthur said. The hound looked at him, and cocked his head. “Time to go hunting.” 

******

Inside the crystal sphere that he had built within his own mind, Merlin paced. He had managed to expand the thick protective walls just far enough for that. Three paces across, with room to turn, three paces back. Past the brilliant light of the spirit fire burning without fuel on the polished floor. The reflective walls and the light in the middle of the tiny room made it hard to see anything outside. 

It was dark out there, the deep green-grey of the deep ocean, utterly silent. Sometimes Merlin thought he could see things moving, vague in the mirk, but the thickness of the curved walls made it impossible to pick out any detail. 

What was Arthur doing? What could Arthur possibly hope to do, with no magic of his own, against a power of this kind? What if Arthur had already tried, and failed? No. Arthur was resourceful, and he was brave. Arthur was the Once and Future King. He would not fail. Could not. Not this time. 

Time after time, Merlin traced the outline of the door: the finest crack, barely to be seen, in the glass-like wall. But he dared not open it. 

*******

  
  


The car park was surrounded by a wooded parkland, sloping down away from the road. It was full of thick bracken cover and woodland in which all manner of things might be hidden. They ranged down the hillside and back up again, Arthur choosing from the multitude of small paths that wound through the trees, the hound Cavall ranging ahead on his long legs, and then looping back to his master at remarkable speed. 

There was no visible sign of anything amiss. The trees were green with late-summer leaves just turning golden at the edges under blue skies. There was a slight breeze, enough to keep the day from being over-warm, and in the trees, birds were singing. 

Cavall put up a pheasant, bright-burnished feathers flashing in the sunlight as it took off, wings whirring, calling in panic, ‘Cokcokcokcok!’ as Cavall’s teeth closed a few inches behind its tail. 

“Hist!” Arthur told him reprovingly. “You are supposed to be a running dog, what are you doing hunting gamebirds? “ Cavall sniffed at a clump of grass, and wagged apologetically. 

It would have been idyllic, this quiet woodland in the sun, if there had been no urgency. But there was no point rushing things and getting lost or missing some vital clue: in this rough terrain it would be too easy for one man to pass another and for them never to see one other. Arthur covered the ground methodically, moving fast. 

******

From within his walls of crystal, Merlin watched the darkness gathering in the deep sea outside. He had dimmed the fire, so that he could see a little beyond his crystal sphere, despite the distorting thickness of the walls. Something out there was moving, something huge, swimming closer. 

It loomed above him, massive, a great pitted, scaled surface, like a building moving. And then an eye opened, in what was suddenly apparent as a head. The eye was round, pale, and huge, glowing with a faint, disturbing light against the dark that coiled and massed around it. It regarded him for a long moment. And then it turned away, leaving only a sense that some huge body was flowing around Merlin’s small refuge and moving off into the dark water. 

Merlin turned his back to it, and let the fire blaze up in front of him, hiding the darkness all around in bright reflections. He was shaking. This was not a thing he had ever seen before, but out of myths and stories heard long ago and half forgotten, he recognised it. 

“ Jörmungandr,” he muttered. “The Midgard serpent. Well, now we have real trouble.”


	8. Ancient and Modern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arthur negotiates with sorcerers.

At last, under the spreading branches of a huge oak, Arthur found what he was looking for. 

Thirteen men and women dressed in long cloaks and robes of deep rich colours sat at their ease on the rabbit-nibbled turf, laughing, chatting, eating sandwiches and sipping from paper cups. On a rough stone boulder nearby, there lay a flat wooden slab, inscribed with the sign of a heart made of flames. It was surrounded by candles in glass jars. A laptop computer, a thick green folder, two tall silver cups and a long, dark knife lay on the grass next to it. Not far away was a small cauldron, suspended over a blue cylinder labelled ‘Gas’. 

There could be no question that these people had been doing magic.

Arthur laid his hand on his sword hilt, preparing to draw as he approached, then hesitated. These people appeared unarmed, and did not look formidable, but no doubt they had weapons that could not be seen. And yet, ‘be tactful’, Merlin had said. He stood for a moment before them, preparing English words at his head, Cavall silent at his heel. They had been talking, but they fell quiet as they looked up and noticed him. 

“Are you the people that summoned the sea?” he asked them, careful to pronounce the odd English words correctly. “You must undo what you have done. It’s urgent.”

**********

The working had gone well, Rachel thought, better than she had imagined it could. It had been a long uphill cycle ride to get out from the center of Oxford all the way to Shotover Park that morning, with her lovely velvet cloak rolled up in her backpack. She had feared that it might rain, which would have been miserable. But then the clouds rolled away and the sun shone. 

The ground had shaken as they read the words of the old spell: in reality, she supposed, that must have been a ground tremor or maybe some distant quarry at work, but it had really felt like they were doing real magic. 

Afterwards, they had made offerings, then meditated in the sunshine on the sunny autumn hillside, and then after a couple of hours, since the sun was getting quite warm, they had stopped and retired to the shade under the trees for a convivial and relaxed lunch. Hilda had brought cake. It was all quite delightful. 

A man stepped out of the trees a little way downhill from them, a tall man, rather gorgeous, she couldn’t help noticing, although absolutely not Rachel’s type. Blond hair that caught the sunlight, blue eyes, muscles. A huge black greyhound sort of dog trotting at his heel. He stopped and stared at them. This, in itself, was not unusual. The sight of thirteen people in robes did tend to attract people’s eyes.

Was that a  _ sword hilt _ that his hand was resting on? Perhaps he was some martial arts enthusiast, or maybe a re-enactment type. In which case, he had no business staring at them as though  _ they  _ were the peculiar ones. 

And then he started talking about summoning the sea. 

******

“No,” Arthur said, for about the fifth time. “I’m not joking. I am not making fun of you. I’m telling you, you are probably the only sorcerers in the Isle of Britain who are still able to walk and talk, at this moment.”

“We aren’t sorcerers!” a large black-bearded man protested. 

“Witches then. Whatever you prefer. The point is, whatever level... you people... work at is mostly flooded by the sea. Surely you must know this?” 

“No,” said the small neat blonde woman who seemed to be their leader. “This seems quite unlikely. We raised protections across the land this morning, that was all. I can’t see how that could do any harm at all. It all seems very dubious.”

“It was just a protective spell,” added the plump dark girl, who looked considerably younger than most of the others. “An old one. I...” 

“But you’ll forgive me,” the neat woman said, interrupting smoothly, “If I ask who you are, and what your concern is in this matter. You’ve not been very clear about that.”

Arthur was beginning to seriously doubt that he had found the right people. But here they were in the right place, clearly they were sorcerers, and surely the fact that they were still walking and talking must mean these must be the people who had called on the sea. 

Merlin had mentioned that calling the sea should only be done with great care. Perhaps these people had simply done it very badly. 

“My name is Arthur Pendragon. Yes, really.” he said, trying not to show his impatience, as they showed signs of disbelief. “Pendragon. King. Really. Here’s the sword, Excalibur, that’s the dog, Cavall. I think you know who I am. ”

“Hilda Chapman,” said the neat blonde woman, looking doubtful, but extending a well-manicured hand. “I am afraid this does still seem all very unlikely.”

“Hilda,” the plump dark girl interrupted, staring at a pink-cased phone in her hand. 

“What is it, Rachel?” 

“ I just checked twitter on my phone - there are a lot of people tweeting about a sudden surge in hospital admissions today. Apparently the ambulances are working flat out, thousands of people found unconscious. Look, it says here, they’ve called in St Johns’s Ambulance and the Red Cross and now they are mobilising the army! Take a look at this news story!” she passed the smartphone over. Hilda scanned it in silence. The other members of the group were checking phones too, murmuring to one another in concern. . 

“I don’t see how this can possibly be any responsibility of ours at all,” Hilda said, handing the phone back to Rachel and speaking generally to the whole group.. “Our work has been entirely positive. Protective. Our focus is on light and healing!” 

“And do you all say the same?” Arthur turned to the rest of the group. “You are all quite sure that this has nothing at all to do with you?” 

Three of them were making worried phonecalls. The others were showing signs of panic, their voices rising as they checked phones and texts and exchanged news. Traffic accidents and fires. Something about a plane forced to land in Cumbria, another crashing in Northern France. Arthur could see that soon they would begin to scatter, each to try to deal with the small personal elements of the crisis that cut each of them most nearly. 

“Quiet! he said, with all the authority he could summon up. They turned and looked at him, uneasy. “Hold together.” he told them. “The centre of all of this lies here, in this place. Together we can find the heart of it.” 

That seemed to steady them somewhat. They looked less panicky. It seemed that these magical people could be steadied by the right words, just as knights or peasants could be. So he went on; “Tell me. What happened here?”

“Nothing!” Hilda said, but the youngest woman, Rachel, looked him straight in the face, with round, worried eyes. 

“I think, I think, it may have been something... something I came up with. “ she admitted, sounding shrill and worried. “We did this spell I found, this morning. An old one. It was found underground. I thought, I thought it was a protection spell, but now...”

“Now you aren’t sure?”

“Rachel, there’s no need to admit liability,” the blonde woman began. 

“It’s not about liability,” Rachel said,sounding desperate yet determined. “It’s about whether I screwed up. Me. Not you, Hilda,” she turned apologetically to the older woman “And not any of the rest of you. And, and, I think I might have done.”

Arthur was, despite himself, impressed. He had known experienced knights who would have lied to themselves in such a situation, let alone being able to admit such a major mistake to a stranger, in front of all the others. 

But of course, the fact that she thought she had made a mistake did not mean the mistake was what he was looking for. Merlin would know. But Merlin was shut away in some world of his own. He hoped so, anyway. He hoped that Merlin, somewhere bafflingly inside his own mind, was safe and waiting, not drowning in some peculiar way that was almost impossible to understand. 

“Tell me, what was this spell?”

In fits and starts, Rachel explained. How the written tablets had been found. How she had photographed and copied them. 

“But it’s not easy to be sure of getting it right.” she explained. “Even the real experts have difficulty piecing this sort of really old stuff together. There are so many lost words, and the writing’s very different...”

“Well,” Arthur said, giving in very slightly to the temptation to sarcasm. “I’m afraid I can’t claim to be a  _ real _ expert. I only learned the Saxon tongue when I was seven, and I’ve been told I speak it with something of an accent. But perhaps I could have a look?” 

Rachel picked up the green folder, scattering paper and photographs across the turf. Hilda picked them up and set them in order, lined up neatly on the grass. She had stopped arguing, to Arthur’s relief, but she stayed close, protectively near the younger woman. The others had moved away a little and were hovering nervously some distance away.

The photographs of the original spell were hard to read, but not so much harder than many of the charters and hand-written reports that Arthur was accustomed to. He puzzled through it, translating awkwardly into his own language and then trying to think how the words might sound in English. 

“So this is the Latin bit,” Rachel told him, pointing. “And then it goes into Anglo Saxon, here.” 

“I don’t think a Saxon wrote this,” Arthur told her. “They mostly write ... wrote... like they’re hacking chunks out of wood, if they know how to write at all. This looks like more like it has been written by someone who is used to writing a good deal in Latin... I see why you thought it’s a protection spell. But what it’s protecting and how might be the problem. See here? where it begins ‘cyning...’ ?”

“I thought that was about a kingdom. That was where it seemed to fit so well” Rachel told him. “A spell to protect the United Kingdom, you see?” 

“Problem is, Saxons — these Saxons, anyway, maybe it was different later — kingdom means something different. It’s more like, family.”

“A kin-group, that sort of idea?” Hilda asked intelligently. 

“Kin-group. Yes. I think so. They don’t... didn’t.. really have much idea of borders, administration, the rule of law. They were never part of Rome, you see. You have to remember that, always, when you are negotiating with them,” Arthur told her, thinking of bloodstained men who would think nothing of bringing long knives hidden to a peace-council, who would destroy a church for the gold on the altar, who would seize any enemy and bring him to thralldom. 

“They don’t think about Emperors or High Kings or cities like we... used to. They have the family, and the land. What they would call... would have called a kingdom, is just what is under the protection of the family. What they can grab and hold.”

“I see.” Hilda frowned. “So the area protected was wrongly defined, you think.”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said, frowning. It seemed all wrong that he, of all people, should be explaining a spell to sorcerers. But this was a Saxon spell, and Arthur had spent his life knowing that the Saxon threat could bring an end to all that he had worked for. He might not be one of them, but he had spent his life trying to understand them. “But you are all well here, and other people with magic are not. Perhaps you have protected not a place on a map, but people, by blood.” 

“You think this spell only worked on our own families, and everyone around them has been hurt?” Rachel said. “Oh! But in that case.... Hilda, how far can that spell have gone? My aunties are in Tel Aviv... Surely it can’t have gone that far. Can it?” 

“Where’s Tel Aviv?” Arthur asked, trying to define the limits of the problem. 

“Israel,” she said, which did not help. She had pulled out her phone again, and held it indecisively in one hand, clearly wondering whether to call her family there and then. 

“You’d probably think of it as Judaea,” Hilda supplied, surprisingly helpful. “Like in the Bible.” 

Arthur had no very clear idea of the location of Judaea either, but he knew it was a long way away, the other side of distant Constantinople. He nodded. 

“Even if it has gone so far, then your aunts will surely be in no danger: after all, they are your relations and so they are under your protection. I think, if I understand this line correctly,” he tapped the photograph, “that any blood relation of any of you here will share your immunity to the general problems. Probably relatives by marriage too, knowing what Saxons are like. But the people who are not related to you by blood or ... or allegiance... to a Saxon, those people are probably either enemies or potential thralls.”

“What do you mean, blood or allegiance?” Rachel asked. 

“That sounds hard to define,” Hilda said, in the tones of one used to precisely defining terms in writing. 

Arthur chuckled at the incongruity. “Saxons don’t worry about exact definitions. Makes them hard to pin down. As to how it would apply now, who knows. But that horse has already bolted, and the damage is done. It’s the second section that looks as if it might be most dangerous. All this part about the sea. It’s all wrapped up in the sort of word-riddles that Saxons love so much. Here. This about the... the spirit, I think that’s the modern word, and the flood and the waves... and then there’s this line, about the shadows of night and revenge.”

“I thought that was about banishing evil.” 

“You could read it that way. But I don’t think that’s what they meant.” Arthur frowned at it. “ I got a very unpleasant letter once, from one of their leaders, phrased much like that. He definitely wasn’t being friendly.” 

“So how  _ can _ we undo it?” Rachel asked him. 

Arthur laughed shortly, unamused. “I am very much not the right person to ask. You are the witches. Can you not reverse the spell? ” 

Rachel looked at Hilda in appeal. 

“I suppose we could try a simple spell reversal,” Hilda said, looking calm and efficient. “We have enough candles left, I think, to make another working. Craig? Did you bring salt?” 

Given a task to do, the sorcerers did not take long to organise themselves. They formed a circle and began to hum, strewing salt in liberal handfuls from a tall white plastic canister. 

Arthur retreated to lean on a tree a little way away, to watch them at work. The idea of standing idle next to a magic ritual worked by thirteen sorcerers made him itch, and he found himself checking his sword hilt repeatedly, adjusting his footing and checking around for foes that might approach through the trees. 

All his instincts told him to draw the sword. But there was no danger in sight, and Merlin had said: be tactful. There was nothing tactful about a naked sword. 

The sorcerers were lighting candles now, the flames indistinct in the bright sunlight, and they were chanting, a little raggedly. How much longer would this take? 

And then it was all over. There was no shudder underfoot this time, no outward sign that anything had changed. Only a scatter of white salt on the green turf in the sunlight, and the odd chemical smell of the tall white candles, made of some stuff that was neither beeswax nor tallow, and people bundling cloaks and robes into bags. 

Hilda advanced on him, politely smiling in a way that revealed nothing. He recognised the expression. It was one that he was well practiced in himself. 

“Well, we have done our best,” she told him. “We have carried out a general reversal of our working this morning. If it was indeed a harmful one, it should be gone now. Are you satisfied?” 

Arthur was not satisfied, but it was hard to say why. He had a nagging worry that perhaps some other, more potent circle of sorcerers might be hidden elsewhere on the hillside. These people seemed so... innocuous. Bumbling, even. It was difficult to imagine them responsible for anything more than a squabble over candle supplies. They were straggling off now, in twos and threes, back up the hill towards the car park. 

The younger girl, Rachel, was loading papers and a small folding computer into a backpack, balanced on the saddle of a rugged-looking bicycle with wide, chunky tyres that she had produced from behind a tree. 

“Wait,” he said, striding after her “I have a friend who will want to see your spell. Will you come and show him? He should be waiting just up there in the car park, I hope, if this magic has done its job.”

*******

Outside Merlin’s sphere of crystal, the light had changed. It was brighter now, greener, lit from above, and there was a sense of urgent movement, as if some great ocean current was racing past outside. 

The oppressive feeling of menace had passed, moving away into the deep seas, leaving a sense of almost physical relief, as if a great weight that had been pressing on Merlin’s mind had been rolled away. 

For the first time, Merlin could see something more than water and shadow outside his crystal refuge. Out there against the green light, limp pale forms were being thrown and tumbled by the water. His small space was the only unmoving thing in a world of storm-tossed sea, haunted by drowned souls. 

Arthur had done something, surely. But what? There was a feeling of vast movement all around, and Merlin’s momentary elation tipped over into creeping concern. Where was all this water going to, at such a pace? 

Merlin could feel the sea moving beneath him, and then the dome of crystal broke the surface, wild water beating against it, filling the small space in which he stood with the sound of waves. They made traceries of foam on the walls, sparkling in the sunlight, and somewhere, gulls were crying. 

The tide was going out fast, here in the world outside the world. He had weathered the surge, for now at least. But there was no point waiting here any longer. He turned to the hairline crack that marked the doorway, and unsealed it.

He had almost stepped out and back into his own body right away. But looking out as he stepped from the shelter of the dome, which was already fading away into nothing, he could see a long yellow beach bordered by a clear blue-green sea. It stretched away into a misty distance, backed by dunes, and all along the beach, bodies were strewn like debris as if left behind by the receding tide. From the pale blue rain-washed sky came the distant cries of seabirds, although Merlin could not see them in the haze. 

Merlin was torn. He wanted to step back out into the primary world, to talk to Arthur, to find out what had happened, and to work out where that terrible darkness had vanished to. But here were people - his own people, magic users of all kinds, who had been trapped here for no fault of their own, lost at sea. If once he left this plane, it would be hard to find precisely where he was again, and would any of these people know how to find their way back, if they were still able to do so? 

He paused for a moment in indecision, then stepped out upon the sand, took the nearest body by the shoulder and turned it over. It was pale and light, almost transparent, and much less heavy than a real water-soaked body should have been. Merlin’s own form in this misty space beside the water was his normal self in every detail - but the face before him was vague. It was hard to tell if it were male or female, old or young. But under Merlin’s touch, it moved, just a little, opened its mouth and coughed a mouthful of water onto the sand.

There was nothing for it, he would have to try. He looked along the beach, stretching misty into the distance, and sighed. There were bodies — or the equivalents of bodies in this strange place — strewn along the water’s edge as far as he could see. He knelt down by the first and tried to strengthen it enough that he could help it slip back into the place where it belonged. 

***

When they got back to the car park, Merlin still lay, apparently unconscious, in the passenger seat of the car. Rachel’s eyes opened wide in alarm when Arthur opened the door into the narrow space next to the hedge, and she saw the body slumped there.

Arthur felt for the pulse in Merlin’s neck. “It’s stronger. It was very slow, earlier. Feels more normal now.”

“Is that good?” Rachel asked, nervously, fidgeting with her phone. She had propped the bicycle against a tree in the hedge next to the Volvo. 

“I am not sure. He said he was going into some sort of ....magical refuge. But how that works...” Arthur left the passenger door open, walked back and rummaged in the boot of the car, “Perhaps it takes a while to recover from this sort of magical attack. What do you think?” 

Rachel looked alarmed. “I...don’t know. We really didn’t know that we were... attacking anyone. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve ever done a spell that.. well. Really  _ worked _ . You know, in a really obvious, knocking people unconscious kind of way. Usually it’s a lot more... subtle. ” 

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Subtle, or do you mean, doesn’t work?” He dumped a can of dog food into a dish and put it on the ground for Cavall, who began to gobble it with delighted relish. 

Rachel opened her mouth, and then closed it again in confusion. “Subtle. I think.” 

“Can you do anything to help my friend here?” 

Rachel looked at him, and a small cautious voice at the back of her mind, which sounded very much like her mother, chattered at her about strange men encountered in remote car parks with unconscious bodies slumped in their cars. Specifically, strange men who were at least a foot and a half taller than Rachel. Strange men with swords by their side, who gave you what must, surely, be a false name. 

To get closer to the unconscious man, she would have to walk between the car and the hedge, where the car would block any sight of her to anyone who might be passing. There was nobody else near them in the car park now anyway, the rest of her group having already headed off briskly by bike or car. 

On the other hand, if she had listened to her mother, she would not be here in the first place. 

And just possibly, if she had listened to her mother, the unconscious man would be fine, and not in need of help. Because Rachel would never have tried to cast that dratted spell. If the spell was real, then just possibly, the name was real, too. Probably not though. It was hard to know what to believe. 

“I’ll do my best,” she said, and quietly thumbed her phone to call Hilda. Hilda would probably not answer: she was rushing off as usual to some other engagement. But the call would go through to voicemail, and then if anything bad happened... well. Hilda would know what to do.


	9. London and Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of lives become suddenly nasty, brutish and short.

Merlin had freed perhaps a hundred of the strange indistinct things that were... what? Souls? Manifestations? Some inseparable, important part of those people with magical talents who had been caught up by the sea-spell, anyway -- when he noticed that some of them were fading away on their own. 

Some of them were recovering: he had seen that almost at once, and it cheered him up greatly. The fifth he had come to had been moving already, turning over and pulling itself up on its elbows. It had needed only a brief touch to help it on its way home. There were some - a few - that were able to stand before Merlin came near them. They seemed more solid than the rest, and they turned and walked away as he watched. One or two of them even seemed able to see their neighbours, to put an insubstantial arm around them and help them home. 

But later, there were others that did not move, but simply faded into the sand as he looked at them, and were gone. It didn’t look right. It didn’t look as though they were going back to where they should be. It looked like they were going into nothing. And it was happening to more and more of them. He stared at them and frowned, baffled. 

***

At once both further away than miles could tell, and sixty miles downriver, t he Thames shimmered in the sunlight, reflecting blue sunlit skies. Small ferries plied their way over the water, past the looming clock tower of Big Ben and the stained yellow sandstone pinnacles of the Houses of Parliament. 

Inside, the House of Commons was bustling with MPs and their staff. An important debate on NHS funding was scheduled for that afternoon, a three-line whip had been imposed by both the main parties, and in any case, their constituents would be checking to see who was there. 

Just around the corner, crowds of delighted tourists snapped and waved enthusiastically as a convoy of sleek dark cars pulled into the Sanctuary car park in front of Westminster Abbey. Her Majesty the Queen waved back at them, smiling, and walked slowly to the Abbey’s western door, supported on her husband’s arm. 

Much to the tourists’ delight, she was followed by her eldest son and his wife, and then a further car came pulling in to disclose the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Unannounced save to those who really needed to know, the Royal Family were arriving to attend the Battle of Britain memorial service at the Abbey. 

The tide in the river was high, just before the turn. Cars and vans queued, waiting patiently for the Tower Bridge to reopen. The two sides of the bridge, which normally formed the road, were raised high to let the elegant form of the three masted schooner  _ Nimrodel  _ pass through. 

Visitors wandering along the South Bank pointed and snapped. The paying passengers on the tall white ship looked up and admired the tall golden turrets of the massive stone bridge, over their glasses of wine. 

Annaliese Bergkamp edged the wheel of the Nimrodel over just a fraction, delicately, as the long bowsprit slid forward out of the shadow of the bridge. It was the first time that Annaliese had been allowed to take the wheel on the route up the Thames and steer the Nimrodel into the Pool of London. She was determined that everything was going to go perfectly. There would not be the slightest bump or scrape to the tall white ship’s paintwork. 

Further downstream, away east past the massive glass-and-steel skyscapers of Canary Wharf, the great gates of the Thames Barrier, strung between great silver-domed piers to protect the city from storm surges, stood open. 

Why should they not? The sun was shining, the air was still, and the tide was not expected to be unusually high that day. 

***

When reports began to go out that the busy QEII bridge that carried the M25 ringroad over the wide tidal waters of the Thames, out to the east of the city, had been cut, worried drivers trapped in the sudden buildup of traffic, police and news services all assumed this must be an attack by terrorists. Confused reports spread swiftly over Twitter and Facebook and radio that the bridge had been bombed. Urgent helicopters mounted the sky to inspect the damage from above.

On the forty-fifth floor of One Canada Square, in a glass-walled room high in the great steel and glass tower in the heart of London’s Docklands, Salim glanced at his twitter feed and saw the first tweets about the M25 bridge. 

He had been working on his project since eight am that morning, and he had finally got to the bottom of one of the major bugs in it. There was a good chance they would be able to meet the beta testing schedule after all, and that would make the investors very happy. He fired off a triumphant email, and decided to take a coffee break to catch up with the news.

The machine took a minute or two to produce a fresh, richly-scented cup, and he took it over to a window to drink, scrolling through the news with one finger between sips. The first photographs of the fallen bridge were just coming through. 

The devastation was shocking to see. 

The M25 was too far away to see from the office, even from the forty-fifth floor,but squinting at the horizon, he could see a faint darkness along the edge of the Eastern sky that might be smoke. Salim hoped that none of his friends had been caught up in it, and did a quick mental check to work out if any of them were likely to have been on that road today. There was no death count reported yet, but it was too much to hope that a bomb on the busy motorway would not have killed anyone. It was hard to imagine what sort of madman would deliberately do such a thing. Why would _anyone_ blow stuff up for the sake of causing mayhem, when building new things was so rewarding? 

***

Marta Jarosz was making coffee too, down at the View cafe, where the tables on the small terrace looked out over the River Thames and the and tall curved silver piers of the Thames Barrier. It was unusually busy in the cafe that day, for the sunshine had brought out visitors to stroll along the riverside path and most of the tables were full. She poured the coffee, took the cash with a quick smile for the customer, and then, before any more customers could come in, she hurried outside with a tray to clear some tables. 

She was vaguely aware that there were clouds gathering, away downriver. It would be a pity if the weather changed, she thought, efficiently gathering plates and cutlery together. It would be nice if it was still sunny at the end of her shift. 

She could hear a faint roaring noise. A plane taking off from the airport, probably, although it was getting louder now, unexpectedly loud. Normally the takeoff didn’t sound quite like that. And who was that, shouting and screaming? People watching a football match, perhaps? She paused and peered in the direction of the noise in curiosity. 

Something was running up the banks from the river. Several somethings, no more. A horde of things that were a rusty red colour like old blood, leaping from the waters of the river up the walls and over the neatly mown grass. Behind them in the river, there was a wall of water rolling upstream, and in the middle of it, something huge and dark. 

One of the red animals rushed onto the cafe terrace and landed poised in front of Marta. For one long moment, time stood still, and Marta frozen with a plate in her hand. A huge beast, a little like a walrus, but with short, strong thick legs and grabbing handlike claws, that stank like rotting fish. And oh, a wide mouth full of yellow, savage teeth. 

It charged with such sudden brutal speed that Marta did not even have time to scream before it ripped her open. 

***

Salim could see now that the darkness in the Eastern sky was more than just smoke. There must be a storm coming up. Bad luck. It would hamper the rescue efforts. No doubt the emergency services would be working hard to help anyone who might have survived the explosion. 

But... there was a faint dark line in the water, moving up the distant Thames, almost like a tall wave. Yes, a wave. It must be a big one to be visible at such a distance: Salim wondered if there had there been another explosion to trigger it. There was something dark in the middle of it... a boat? A huge boat, surely, and moving fast, how would it stop without hitting the barrier?

The dark thing hit the Thames Barrier. It smashed through six of the great silver piers at once without seeming to notice them at all, a great dark form rising from the river bed to overwhelm and crush the piers, and it kept on moving.

Salim grabbed his phone and started to record video. 

By the time the wave passed the great circular roof of the O2 entertainment arena, on the tip of the Greenwich peninsula, Salim could see it clearly, and he knew that he was going to die.

The thing at the heart of the great wave, which mounted higher as it came closer, was a snake bigger than any aircraft carrier, scaled and ancient with vast pale eyes. It was heading straight for him, moving faster than anyone could run. 

And Salim was on the forty-fifth floor, high above it. There  _ was _ nowhere to run. He could hear other people in the office scrambling for the stairs, the lifts, but he could see the creature coming, the terrible speed of it, and he knew. It would take twenty minutes at least to get out of the building. The thing would be there long before that. 

Salim punched the screen to stop the video, set the file he had already recorded to upload to Youtube, and hit ‘record’ again, holding the phone carefully on the edge of one of the metal strips that supported the window, so that his shaking hands would not affect the recording. 

He was nagged by a vague feeling that he should have the phone set to live stream directly, but something was fogging his mind: he could not remember how to do it, and then he was seized by the absurdity of worrying about it. But at least he would bear witness. Someone would need to know about this, someone would need to see it, to know exactly what this was, how it looked, how it moved. 

That was how you solved problems: big ones as much as small ones, by collecting the required information first. And that, at least, was something that Salim could do. 

Behind the great serpent, and either side, filling the shallower waters near the banks and swarming out onto the land, the heavy reddish bodies of smaller creatures swarmed in terrible hordes. And behind the serpent, the wave and its horrific following, dark storm clouds roiled into the clear blue sky. 

Where London’s old docks still made a watery space that cut across acres of new and expensive glass and concrete offices, the great snake left the curving river Thames and cut straight ahead. The bow wave mounted the concrete-clad bank and smashed into the building and on its back the snake came up out of the riverbed, rearing back like a cobra poised to strike, black and dripping with the slime of the river-bed. Then it lashed out, ahead of the wave. 

The towers of stone, metal and glass smashed, twisted and fell under the weight of its great body. 

Salim felt the building shudder as the wave hit it, and he had just time to hit ‘upload’ for the second time as the steel beneath him twisted and tore with a terrible scream and the sound of shattering glass echoed around him. He grabbed at a wall, instinctively reaching out for support, and then he was falling, falling, and the building was falling around him, everything breaking loose, and tumbling. Then something hit him, and the world went black. 

Sealing the fate of those that had escaped the falling rubble and the great wave, the red-skinned niceras came, swarming behind their massive leader, biting, grabbing, killing. 

****

Storm clouds reared behind the tall shape of Tower Bridge, although the sky ahead of the  _ Nimrodel _ ’s long bowsprit was still a placid blue. Annaliese frowned at the clouds over her shoulder. They had not been mentioned in the weather forecast and she did not like the look of them. There was something in the air that was not right, a smell of wild rain and ozone. The movement of the water was choppier than it should be. 

She did not care for the idea of handling the beautiful, delicate,  _ Nimrodel _ in this tight river-space full of ferries and bridges and high concrete banks, if the wind should get up. There was no room for manoeuver at all. 

She put out a call to HQ back in Woolwich on the ship’s official VHS radiophone to ask for permission to delay the cruise, to put in at a quay to wait out the wind, but there was no answer. Dratted technology. 

The clouds were closer now, and the river’s movement definitely uneasy. She called the crew over the loudspeaker, and told them she had made the decision to tie up for a few hours, until the weather cleared. They began to turn the tall ship, a delicate cautious movement in a ship of this size and height, with no bow thrusters to improve her agility. 

And so it was that the  _ Nimrodel  _ was facing the wave, as it crashed through Tower Bridge. It was at least twenty-five feet tall, Annaliese thought, jerking back in alarm from her station in the wheelhouse at the sight of it. No, taller, surely... 

_ N _ _ imrodel _ had begun life as a working herringboat, riding the great Atlantic swells, before the cruise company had taken her and shaped her into the shape of a dream for tourists of imagination. Annaliese had faith that she could ride even such a wave as this, out in the open sea. But within the narrow confines of the Pool of London it was a different matter. 

The wave was racing towards them, mounting the banks, crashing into the buildings along the riverside. It lifted the old museum ship, HMS Belfast, and tore her from her mooring, throwing her forward and sideways like a missile up onto the land. The Nimrodel bucked beneath Annaliese, and she took a firmer hold on the wheel. The prow lifted before her, high, impossibly high, and they were climbing, climbing, the bowsprit cleaving through the wall of water. 

There was an unsteady moment, and Annaliese thought for a moment that the old schooner had made it, she had somehow climbed the wall of living water and against all odds, had come out in one piece. But then something vast and dark and very fast smashed into the fragile white ship. The bowsprit and the first two masts were splinters before Annaliese’s horrified eyes, and then it hit the wheelhouse. 

***

Standing by an old Volvo in a car park just outside Oxford, Rachel put her hand on the unconscious man’s shoulder, wondering what she should do. 

She could not think of any spell she had heard of that was designed to wake someone up, and anyway, she had no supplies with her, no knife or herb or candles. 

The dark haired man sitting slumped in the old car seemed uninjured physically. His thin face looked relaxed. It was almost as though he was deeply asleep. Probably he had some medical problem, diabetes or something. He should be in hospital. But then that news story had said there were a lots of people who had been affected, so perhaps it wasn’t diabetes. She hoped whatever it was was not contagious. 

“What’s his name?” she asked with a vague memory that names were important. 

“Merlin. Or... Emrys, some people call him,” Arthur told her. 

Rachel’s eyes went wide. Merlin. “Really? This is Merlin? You mean... THE Merlin?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“And you think that there’s something, anything at all that _ I  _ can do, to help... Merlin. Really? It seems a bit ... presumptuous? ambitious? Insanely  _ over _ ambitious? I don’t even know what the word is!” 

“You’re taking him way too seriously. I’m sure he won’t mind a bit of assistance.” 

“He won’t MIND? What if I screw it up? I haven’t exactly been successful at this magic thing. I don’t think I’m the right person. Anything could happen. Or he could turn me into a frog!”

“Could he really? But then, I could cut your head off.” Arthur said lightly with his hand on the sword hilt, and oh dear, perhaps Rachel’s mother was very occasionally worth listening to after all. 

She squatted down next to the car by the open door, so that she was looking up at the unconscious man. He at least did not look particularly daunting. She picked up his hand. It was cool to the touch, and dry.

“Excuse me? um... Merlin?” she said, testing, and squeezed the hand a bit, but there was no reaction. What else could she do? Well, there was always meditation. She knew how to do that, and surely that could not go badly wrong. She did not care for the idea of saying a spell in words, particularly words in any unfamiliar language. That had turned out to be... way too complicated. 

She closed her eyes and focussed on her breathing until it was slow and steady, carefully damping down the little worried voice at the back of her head. Then she shifted her focus to the hand she held, the long fingers, the pale skin, and visualised how it might look if the hand moved. 

And then it did. It tightened its grip on her hand, and it  _ pulled _ . 

She was standing on a yellow sandy beach beside a quiet green sea, surrounded by a faint mist that made it hard to see anything far away. And there was a tall man holding her hand. She snatched it back, shocked. 

“Oh!” she said. 

“I don’t know why you look so surprised,” the man observed. “You called  _ me _ .”

“Well... I suppose. But I wasn’t expecting...” she waved vaguely. 

“And I wasn’t expecting you. Who are you anyway? You have an impressively solid manifestation on this plane.” 

Rachel gave him her best sarcastic look, usually reserved for elderly male academics who made excessively personal remarks. 

“Oh, don’t look like that, it was a compliment, really it was. Look, all these sad flopperty things on the beach are manifestations.” The man, who must surely be Merlin, although he looked somehow different here to how he had looked, lying unconscious in the passenger seat of the Volvo, knelt and put his hand on the shoulder of a faint transparent wraith thing. It seemed to come alive under his touch, painfully stood up, as if stiff and worn, and then stepped away. And then it was gone. 

Merlin waved after it. “Aren’t they just awful? All thin and blurred. Embarrassing, really. Yours looks almost real.” 

Rachel looked at her hands in confusion. They looked strangely indistinct, and a little transparent. “My name’s Rachel. You look real enough. Why don’t I?” 

“Well, yes, but that’s me. I’m a bit unusual. ” He knelt by the next... manifestation and flashed a brief smile up at her. She found herself smiling back at him, as the pale figure clambered awkwardly upright and stepped away into nothing. 

“Of course, all of these have been underwater. They probably aren’t looking their best, to be fair to them.”

“Are you really Merlin?” she asked him, straight out. Somehow it was hard to be afraid of him, face to face. He did not look alarming. He walked a couple of steps up the beach to the next figure stretched on the sand. 

“Do I not look like Merlin? I knew it! I should never have let Arthur talk me into getting rid of the beard. No-one’s ever going to take me seriously without it. Are you the witch?” 

“The what?” Rachel was taken aback.

“The witch that summoned the sea. Arthur found you, then?” The third manifestation seemed unable to stand, but it was moving. Merlin watched it carefully as it crawled away. 

“Yes... yes, he did. But I didn’t... I never meant to... And it wasn’t just me!” 

“I bet a lot of it was you,” Merlin was looking at her with a disconcertingly appraising air. Unexpectedly, he stepped forward and prodded her shoulder. “Very solid. I’ve been trying to get these half-drowned manifestations back to... back to the rest of themselves, ever since the tide went out. I’m pretty sure that the tide going out was something to do with you, now that I can see you. There’s always something of a distinctive touch, to magic. Like an accent.” 

“So you’re all right? The... Arthur was worried about you. He thought maybe you’d got.. stuck or something, and he told me to help. He said he could cut my head off!” 

“Hah! I think that’s the first time he’s told someone that, since he woke up. I suppose he must be worried. Anyway, I’m fine. But I didn’t want to leave these people without help...” The next manifestation Merlin came to seemed to be stronger. It shook its head muzzily as he touched it, then jumped to its feet and almost sprinted away into thin air. 

Merlin looked at her through narrowed eyes. “But now you’re here, we can speed things up. You’ve got a connection to all of them, after all. ”

“But I don’t! ... I... to be honest, until just now, I wasn’t even sure that magic was real. But this...” she kicked at the sand, and made a long shallow scrape in the sand, “This has to be real. I can hear the waves. I can even smell the seaweed!”

“You made a spell to call in the sea and  _ you didn’t think magic was real _ ? “ Merlin’s eyebrows went up and his mouth went tight, and suddenly she realised that actually Merlin could be very very scary indeed. 

“I...didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. I ... I wanted it to be real, but...”

“Well, now you know. Magic is real. All these _ real  _ people have paid the  _ real _ price of  _ real  _ magic. And I think they would quite like to go home now. Which would be good to sort out _ quickly, _ because I’m a bit worried that the ones that are fading away without moving are actually dying, and it’s only by checking each one that I can put them back where they should be. But you helped bring them all here. That means you can send them all home. ”

“Of course.” Rachel said, now feeling slightly less than one inch tall. “How? What do I do?” 

“Just tell them to go home. I’ll do the rest.” 

“All right,” She looked up and down the misty beach and raised her voice “I’m really sorry! Please all go home now!” 

Beside her, Merlin called out a single word she did not recognise, a word that echoed oddly, and his eyes lit with a golden light. There was a ripple in the air like a sudden breeze blowing, which was reflected all along the beach as faint, indistinct bodies rippled into motion, pulling themselves to their feet and walking away. 

And then there was nothing on the beach but a few shells, and small rippling green waves lapping at the sand. 

“That’s more like it. I was beginning to think I would be here for weeks, doing them one at a time. Shall we go?” 

Merlin began to turn and take a step away, just as all the others had done. 

“Wait! Rachel said, grabbing at his arm. “Please! I don’t know how to get back.” 

Merlin gave her another of those looks, almost enough to make her wonder if living alone on a deserted beach for the rest of her life would actually have been better than admitting that she did not know how to leave it on her own. Then he silently extended a hand. 

And there they were, in the quiet car park with small birds singing in the hedge, Merlin climbing out of the passenger seat of the car, stretching, and Rachel’s knees were aching from holding her awkward position beside the car for too long. 


	10. The Wyrd of England

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and Merlin recruit assistance, and make a Plan.

Arthur looked up when he saw them moving. “Ah, you’re awake, finally. What took so long? I was starting to think I’d have to heave you both into the boot and drive off.” 

“Were you worried?” Merlin flashed him that irritating smile. 

“I was worried about the prospect of having to drive around with an increasingly large pile of sorcerers in the car, certainly. That’s the kind of thing that attracts unnecessary attention.” 

“Hah. I knew you were worried!”

“ I am. You should be worried, too. I’ve been listening to the radio while you were off ... sorcering or snoozing or whatever it is that you’ve been doing. London is under attack.”

“ _ What? _ ” 

Arthur silently handed him the unmagical tablet. The device seemed to like being in Oxford much better than it had liked Wales. Arthur had had no difficulty checking for news, once he’d heard the first newsflash on the radio. There was even a video clip. The young sorceress, Rachel, peered over Merlin’s shoulder. 

“What on earth is...” she said and her voice trailed off, as the video played on, the reporter’s voice sounding oddly tinny as it came from the small speakers, and yet even so it was full of emotion, the voice of someone who was bringing terrible news and could barely believe the words she was reading. 

“We have no accurate or final estimate of the death toll yet, but it is already estimated to be in the tens of thousands,” the voice said. “Many members of Parliament are thought to be among the dead, and there are reports that her Majesty the Queen was also in central London today...” 

“Jörmungandr,” Merlin said, and his voice sounded dry and old. “That was Jörmungandr. In the video. I saw him, before, in the sea. When the sea went out, I hoped he had gone with it. But it hadn’t gone away at all. It came here.”

The small sorceress had her hands pressed to her face so hard that her fingers were white. Her eyes were huge with shock, like a frightened child. 

“Jörmungandr? The Saxon myth? That’s the enemy of their thunder god, isn’t it?” Arthur vaguely remembered hearing the name. 

“Not a myth. Not any more,” Merlin closed his eyes, looking very tired.

“And the other things? The smaller ones? What the hell are they? ” 

Merlin opened his eyes and grimaced. “The niceras. They don’t belong here either. Not since the Saxons turned to their new religion, anyway...” 

“And how do you kill them?” 

Oh, the usual way. Just... try not to get killed first. About the size of a cow, but a lot faster. Teeth, claws, a really bad attitude. Lives in the water, but pretty agile on the land too. That’s a nicor. When there were lots of them, they used to call them niceras.”

“And Jörmungandr? How do we tackle a thing that size?”

“Good question. I have no idea.” Merlin said bleakly. 

“Oh no. Oh no. What did I DO?” the little sorceress, Rachel was muttering. Her face was pale. She looked at Arthur. “ I thought undoing the spell would just put things back! I had no idea...” 

“Oh,” Merlin said wearily, turning to her. “It’s not your fault. Really, it’s not. This is far too big to be your fault. ”

“Are you sure?” There was a ragged edge of desperation to her voice. 

“I couldn’t summon the Midgard Serpent into this land myself, not if I had every magic user in the land helping me. And I’m much stronger than you. No one can summon a thing like that. I thought that sea spell was strange. It was so  _ strong _ . And now I know why. Fate was driving it.  _ Wyrd _ , that’s what they used to call it.”

“Wyrd...” Arthur echoed. “The time that has come. The debt due. I thought they believed that was just for people? You think it applies to the entire  _ country _ ?”

“Maybe.” Merlin waved a hand, unsure. “The form is very old, but ... “

A tiny silver car swung into the car park, moving a little faster than was usual for vehicles arriving at such a dead end, and drove towards them, stopping abruptly a few feet away. The neat, blonde witch, Hilda, jumped out of it, followed by a bearded man wearing a turban. Arthur recognised him as one of the group of sorcerers. 

“Are you all right?” the witch asked Rachel, “I got your call. It sounded like you were being threatened!” She glared at Arthur. 

“Oh! Rachel said, weakly. “I didn’t think you’d come right away. I was just. You know. Being extra careful. ” 

“We were still in the car, anyway,” the man with the beard said. “Hilda thought we’d better come straight back when you suddenly stopped speaking. Just in case.”

The little sorceress had turned pink. “That was really nice of you,” she said “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put you out of your way, Hilda, Taran.”

Hilda walked over to her and gave her an awkward, stiff-looking hug. 

“Really, it was no trouble at all,” Taran said politely, although you could see that it had not been his idea. 

And then there were rather awkward introductions and explanations. 

***

“The spell,” Arthur reminded Rachel, pointing at Merlin. 

“The spell? Oh, yes.” Rachel rummaged in a bag and pulled out the prints and handed them to Merlin. He leafed through them swiftly as Rachel explained how she had come across it. 

“I thought it looked like pretty typical Saxon doubletalk about protecting their family land, with an extra serving of the usual poisonous threats.” Arthur observed. “But you’re the expert. What do you make of it?”

Merlin frowned at the paper and mouthed a few words. “Saxon magic isn’t really my field. But this feels defensive, to me. I think.. There must have been something... pushing on it to make it slide into a general attack on peaceful magic users. “

“You don’t think it caused the problem then? They were there, the... magicians. Thirteen of them, right in the middle of the spot you said was the middle of it.”

“We reversed the spell, once we understood the situation. It was the only option we could think of.” Hilda added. 

Arthur noted with wry amusement that she did not mention the difficulty he’d had convincing them to do it. It was curious to see Merlin among other sorcerers. They clearly looked on him as... well, a king. A leader. And Merlin could not have looked less comfortable about it. 

Merlin riffled through the sheets again, and then handed them firmly back to Rachel, who pushed them back into her backpack with an air of embarrassment.

“Simply undoing it probably was the only thing you could have done - and it did at least release its hold on the magic users it had trapped. This spell was the trigger, the thing that shaped the form of the attack. This wording explains why there were niceras, when everyone has almost forgotten they ever existed... Otherwise, I think, it would have taken a shape more people would recognise. Werewolves or demons or something. Maybe even some sort of giant robot. But no: we get the sea, and in a very old form of its power too.”

“So we  _ did _ cause this.” Rachel said, desolate. 

Merlin turned and looked down at her, his face serious. “I don’t think so. You were unlucky enough to open the way, but if it hadn’t been you, it would have been something else: with this kind of power behind it, it was bound to get through sooner or later. I could feel it... buzzing, but... Blast it! I should have seen the strength of it before. It’s been so long....

“Anyway, when you undid the spell... Well, it’s sort of like... imagine you caught some water in a jug. Then the water was in the wrong place, so you got rid of the jug. And that meant the water spilled. But the sea was never going to stay in a jug, whatever you did. That’s the problem. Salt, cold iron, running water, fire...all the tired old tricks for breaking the hold of magic. But there’s no obstacle in any of them to the sea. Jörmungandr knows all about salt and water running, he’ll corrode iron or smash it. Even a volcano wouldn’t bother him. ” 

“I take it that there is no spell specifically for dealing with ...Jörmungandr?” the bearded man, Taran asked, quietly. 

“I doubt there’s ever been a need for such a spell before. I don’t think I could write one, anyway.” Merlin was still looking deeply shaken. “In the old days when people believed in all this, they used to say that when Jörmungandr leaves his bed, then the end of the world is here. Ragnarok, the war with the gods.” 

Arthur looked at their worried faces, and chose a deliberately light and cheery tone. “Well, that’s Saxons for you. Gloom, doom, death and the end of the world. It doesn’t mean it’s all  _ true _ . Saxons do talk a lot of nonsense. Let’s think about this. They have powerful weapons here, in this century: I’ve been studying them. Will Jörmungandr be able to survive an attack by helicopter gunships? Bombers? Nuclear weapons, even?” 

“It’s possible” Merlin said slowly, clearly thinking hard. “He can use magic himself, you know. He’s not just a really big snake. But I don’t know.”

“I take it nobody has ever tried to bomb Jörmungandr. That will surely be one of the the first things they’ll try. Who would be responsible for that?”

“The RAF, I suppose,” Hilda said. “Or the Army Air Corps, maybe? They have helicopter gunships.”

Merlin was frowning. “If they attack Jörmungandr and don’t kill him, he will probably strike back at them.” 

Arthur nodded. “Yes. With what? Physical power, magic?”

Merlin opened and closed his mouth, looking confused. “I don’t really know. I don’t suppose the niceras could do much against helicopters...”

Hilda said, oddly calm, “But they are among buildings. Helicopter fights in the centre of London would surely be a last resort.” 

Merlin added “But Jörmungandr... I don’t know. He might just grab at a helicopter like a big snake? But ... he might use magic.”

“Right,” said Arthur calmly “What do we think the.. RAF will do, if that happens? Will they retaliate with nuclear weapons?” 

“Surely not,” Rachel said, horrified. “There are millions of people in London.”

“There  _ were _ ,” Merlin said, and there was an uncomfortable pause. 

“Surely, the people will flee the city,” Arthur was thinking aloud. “That many people will be a problem in itself. Food, sanitation... a population on the run is hard to manage.”

“I don’t know if they will, though.” Merlin said, and his face was troubled. “I don’t think they will run. Not many of them, not quickly or very far, anyway. They are  _ so _ used to being safe. It’s a long, long time since they have needed to run for their lives. I think they’ll go to ground instead. There was nothing in the news about evacuating London, was there?” 

Rachel was scrolling through news stories on her phone. “Nothing I can see yet” she reported. 

“Who would decide to order evacuation?” Arthur demanded. 

“The Government, I suppose.” Rachel said, “Or maybe some sort of counter-terrorism agency?”

“The Ministry of Defence,” Hilda offered. 

“Except,” Merlin said “ All of those are...” 

“...based in London.” Rachel finished the sentence and stared at him. “Surely they must have a backup plan?” 

“There is the RAF HQ, at High Wycombe,” Taran suggested tentatively. “They must have some sort of emergency protocol.”

“Let’s hope so,” Arthur said, “But I doubt they will tell us in advance. We’ll have to wait and see." He shook his head and dismissed the problem to deal with later. "If we can’t fight it, can we negotiate with it? You talked to the dragons, Merlin. If I went and spoke to it, would it listen?”

“You want to go and try to talk to ... that?” Merlin looked horrified. 

“I’m just asking if it’s possible,” Arthur said, keeping his voice calm and level. “Do you have any idea what it wants?”

“What it  _ wants _ ? It’s a fecking enormous killer worm!” 

“Merlin, there are plenty of people who’d say dragons were... what was it? Fecking enormous killer worms? But you, you’re the kind of maniac that thinks that there’s nothing more desirable to a civilised society than the addition of giant fire-breathing reptiles. Explain; what is different about Jörmungandr?”

Merlin opened and closed his mouth, as if he were trying to decide which of a hundred arguments to make first. “They are really not the same. Not in any way. Dragons... they’re dangerous, of course, and powerful, but really they are just a different kind of... well. People. You can talk to dragons. You can make magic with them. I can control them with magic, if I have to. Jörmungandr isn’t  _ people _ . Jörmungandr is the nightmare child of a dark god.”

“Is there nothing that he wants?” 

“He came past me, when I was... waiting, before, ” Merlin said, almost in a whisper. “I could feel him out there. He looked at me... He’s not like a dragon. He’s cold, and dark and terrible. Just being near him... it feels like drowning. Like hands are holding you face down in the water. If I had to guess, I’d say what he wants is for the world to end.”

There was a pause, and Cavall nosed at Merlin’s hand. He stroked the dog’s ears absently. 

“Would the dragons help?” Hilda asked tentatively, “If they will talk to you, can’t you ask them to help us?” 

“Perhaps,” Merlin said, shortly, looking at Arthur. “I doubt they’d do it voluntarily. But what exactly am I supposed to ask them to do?”

“I’ve lost my connection,” Rachel interrupted, prodding at her phone. Arthur handed her the tablet device. “...Nope, that’s not responding either.” 

“Ah,” Taran said, turning his own phone off and putting it away in a pocket. “I was wondering about that. Lot of datacentres in London. Serious ...damage... to the city will slow everything down, I think. And there will be a great many people online in a panic just now. I think that will cause network problems.”

“No internet? I was just starting to like the bloody thing.” Merlin said, sounding resigned. 

“Well, that’s going to make it harder to get intelligence. “ Arthur looked around at the half-empty car park in the sunlight. The quiet of it seemed out of place and he would have given anything for even a half-troop of reliable scouts on fast horses. “What else is there? Radio? That isn’t the same thing, is it?” 

“I have a better idea. “ Taran suggested, ” The university network should still be working, if anything is. My office is nearer than Hilda’s...”

“Good idea. Let’s go there. Except for you, Merlin. You keep telling me that bees know everything. Go find some. We need to know how close this thing is, whether it’s still moving...”

“They have a display hive just around the corner from where I work, at the Museum of Natural History...” Taran began. 

“I know,” Merlin said, rather smugly, Arthur thought. “I  _ am _ a member of the British Beekeepers Association, you know. We do stay in touch. Problem is, bees don’t travel all that far. Seven miles, maybe, from their home hive. They hear the rumours from further out, but not quickly enough for this.” He paused for a moment and then gave Arthur a bright smile. “But there’s something else there that might help. Good thing it’s summer. They should be around. They nest in the museum tower.”

“Great.” Arthur said, refusing to be drawn into asking Merlin what on earth he was blathering about. “Let’s get going.” 

“Fine, but I’m driving this time,” Merlin said. 

Arthur threw the keys at him, with a sense of heartfelt relief. “You’re welcome. I’d rather have a horse, any day.”

“How can you even have a driving license?” Rachel asked him.

Arthur could not quite manage to resist raising an eyebrow at that. “I don’t,” he said, trying not to look amused. 

Merlin gave her a quelling look, “I don’t think they have a tickbox on the form for legendary monarch returning to save the nation in Britain’s darkest hour.” 

“It’s perhaps not the most urgent thing, ” Arthur said, deliberately diplomatic. “We seem to have more space in this car than the other.” He waved at the bicycle, trying to remember what it was called. “Can I help you lift your...that, into the back?”

***

Arthur had expected to see activity in Oxford: people on the street exchanging news, carrying weapons. The city was not so very far from London, and most of the inhabitants must have had word of the disaster there by now, just as he and Merlin had.

Yet it was eerily quiet in the sunny streets, as the two cars made their way across the northern end of the town. Even the ubiquitous groups of cyclists that had filled the streets earlier had vanished. 

Taran’s office was in a tall gloomy brick building, one of a maze of tall, square unlovely buildings tucked away down a side-street, well away from the golden sandstone of the older town. Arthur looked at it and thought how difficult to defend it would be. It had many windows and was surrounded by blind alleys ending in brick walls. No castle could defend against the great worm, but Arthur would have felt a good deal happier somewhere where there was at least a rampart of some kind, and a good clear view of at least a few bowshots so you could see the enemy coming. 

The people inside the building did not seem to be aware of their vulnerability at all. They passed a couple of guards who were presumably tasked with watching the door, but they were unarmed and unarmoured, watching a small television behind a desk, and clearly unprepared for attack. 

They barely looked up when Taran opened the outer door and led the small group through the hallway. There would be no defence here, if the niceras came. But then, if Jörmungandr came, there would be no defence anywhere that Arthur could imagine. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, but there was little comfort there. 

Taran’s office was on the third floor. There were several desks in the long, white-walled room, but none of them were occupied. Taran threw himself into a chair and opened a battered-looking laptop. “ Take a seat,” he invited them generally and tapped on the keyboard, “BBC news... no, not responding at the moment. Let’s try the international news sites.” There was a silence as a video loaded onto the screen: Westminster in ruins, seen from a great height, then what looked like a shot taken from a security camera by the river.  Jörmungandr , advancing in great wave, too large now to be contained by the narrowing inland river-bed. A shot from the air of someone running desperately through Kensington gardens, monsters on her trail, torn apart before she could reach the shelter of the Serpentine Gallery. The names read out by the frantic American voice were only half-familiar to Arthur, despite careful study of the road atlas, but he recognised ‘Heathrow Airport’ as being a good distance West of the centre of London. Niceras were running through the wreckage here and there, but the great serpent himself was moving: North and East along the River Thames. The Thames that led, eventually, to Oxford. 

The small witch, Rachel was watching the computer screen with her hand fixed across her mouth, as if she were holding in a scream. Her dark eyes looked huge. 

“What are you going to  _ do _ ?” she asked Arthur in a half-whisper. 

“Defend the city,” he said, and felt suddenly light and free saying it. The threat had been terrible until he could see it, but now, it was here, and he would face it. 

“But how?” Hilda asked him. She put one hand on Rachel’s shoulder, protectively. 

“Merlin and I have been working out a few ideas, these last few weeks. But we didn’t know what we were facing, or where it would come from. It will take me a little while to work out a plan.” 

Merlin ignored them, going instead to the metal-framed window, which he pulled open as far as it would go, and peered out. After a while he gave a shrill whistle, almost too high to hear. Caval, who had flopped down next to him, looked up and cocked his ears. 

“Any luck?” Arthur asked him. Merlin glanced back at him over his shoulder. “Give me a moment... Yes. Here they are. Swifts. Look at them go! Much faster than bees. None of them have anything unusual to report yet. I’ll send them out to gather news. ” 

“Could you use one to take a message?” Arthur asked. He came to the window, looking out at the tiny black long-winged birds that soared in great looping circles across the sunny rooftops and dipped down to skim past the window. 

“I suppose so,” Merlin said looking doubtful, “They are awfully small to carry a note though. Who do you want to send them to? ” 

“I was thinking of the dragons,” Arthur told him. “Unless you have another way to get in touch with them? I don’t think you’ve got time to go to Wales again in person. I’m going to need you here.”

“They made me promise not to call for them by magic,” Merlin reminded him. “The whole agreement with them depended on it.”

“I know, I know... Perhaps we should have given them phones after all.” Merlin looked at him. “Well, perhaps not. We could contact Owen or Sian and ask them to go and talk to them face to face, but... it’s a lot to ask.”

“They wouldn’t eat them,” Merlin said confidently, and then he caught Arthur’s expression “At least... I don’t think they would...”

“And that’s why I’m reluctant to risk it,” Arthur told him. “You  _ aren’t _ sure. I can’t risk their lives if there is a choice. Find a way to send a message with one of these swift birds. It must be possible.” 

“I’ll work something out,” Merlin promised him. 

***

Merlin sent the swifts on their way: South and East, over the rooftops of Oxford and down the river, looking for trouble, all but three of them. Those three, he sent winging Northwest, across the Cotswold hills into the mountains of Wales. Each carried a copy of the message, written not on paper, but strung in magic along a length of cobweb. No ordinary person could have read it. It was written in the spell-language, and would reveal itself only in the presence of dragons. He let them go with a mutter of ‘good luck’ and went back to find out what was going on. 

Arthur was comparing an Ordinance Survey map of Oxfordshire with the road atlas and drawing lines on it. Hilda, Rachel and Taran were staring blankly at the computer screen. 

Merlin recognised shock when he saw it. He found a kettle, and after a little rummaging, some teabags, and a plastic jar of rather lumpy sugar, and began to make tea. There was no milk to be found, so he quietly summoned a pint from the fridge at home in Glastonbury. It needed using up, after all. 

While the kettle boiled, he wandered around the room, peering at posters, poking doubtfully at pieces of equipment on shelves. 

“You’re a scientist,” he said to Taran, pushing an orange mug full of strong sweet tea at him. 

Taran jumped, and his eyes refocussed on the tea. Reflexively, he took a sip. “Yes. I’m a biochemist, actually. I’m working on...”

“So what are you doing joining a coven?” Merlin asked him, suspiciously “Scientists don’t join covens. Aren’t scientists all about proving why magic doesn’t work?” 

Taran looked uncomfortable. “You think scientists can’t have faith?”

“I’m not talking about _ faith _ . Magic isn’t about faith, no matter what people tell you. Magic is about magic. But scientists don’t usually see it that way.”

“Maybe I’m interested in things outside the range of ... how scientists normally see things. Science is about exploring how the world works.” Taran looked cautious. “But magic is not something I talk about at work.... usually. It’s very much a private interest.”

“And you can make it work? This private interest of yours?” 

“Well, I haven’t been involved for for very long...” 

Merlin took a deep swig from his own mug of tea. Human beings could be much more awkward than bees. “But can you actually do magic?” he asked, trying not to sound exasperated, with little success. 

Arthur said lightly, with a warning note in his voice, “Merlin...” 

Merlin ignored him. “Are you any good at it? For example, I know already that she,” he gestured at Rachel, “is very strong, but she doesn’t have the first idea how to use her strength.” Rachel blushed and dipped her head. “What about you?” 

Taran looked at him, and then away. Merlin looked back and said nothing, waiting. The laptop went on talking in its tinny voice : death tolls, destruction, communications. 

“Not very much. I can do a couple of things,” Taran said, his face set and determined behind his black beard. “Or at least... I can do it sometimes. That’s why I started coming along to the meetings. I found I could do things I can’t explain. But I can’t repeat it reliably under experimental conditions, that’s the problem. It’s very frustrating.”

Taran took another sip of tea, and then put down the mug and stared at it. Then he spoke a word, and lifted his hand. Nothing happened. Merlin looked at him, at the shape he made in the world, and reached in and made a small change to it. 

The tea rose from the centre of the orange mug, and formed into a ball. Then it slumped, and slopped over the desk. “Arg!” Taran grabbed for a tissue and mopped up the spilled tea. “Sometimes I can make it form into a ball, and then go back down neatly. Must be feeling a bit distracted today, sorry.”

“I can’t think why,” Arthur said, with a wry smile. 

“That’s not bad,” Merlin told him. The man’s talent was not particularly strong, but it was definitely there, and his spell had had a good strong structure to it. “You’ve got good control, which is a very good start. You’re just holding everything so stiffly that you are blocking yourself. Try to relax. Imagine it’s like dancing or painting or something like that. What was the word you used? I didn’t recognise it.” 

“It’s Punjabi. It means ‘rise up’. My Punjabi isn’t that good, I’m afraid. I only really use it when I’m talking to my Nan. But nothing happens if I use English.” 

“Interesting, “ Merlin restrained himself from following the urge to investigate this linguistic byway, and turned suddenly to Hilda. “And you? You’re the leader of the coven, aren’t you?” 

“Organiser, really.” Hilda seemed trim and poised as ever. Did anything ever upset her? “I book the rooms and organise the timetable. But we’re a group of equals. Everyone has a voice.”

I bet they do, Merlin thought to himself. And I bet your voice is last and the one that everyone ends up following, in the end. 

“How about the others?” Arthur threw in “The ones who went away after the ritual. Can they do anything?”

“Perhaps,” Hilda said, and a slight frown creased her forehead. “But I’m not sure how to get in touch with them quickly. My phone’s still not responding at all.” She held it up, as if that might help. 

“They might not know,” Rachel added. “I didn’t until, suddenly...” she waved her hand to illustrate spells that unexpectedly turn out to be much more powerful than you expected. 

“But you do have magic yourself ?” Merlin asked Hilda. 

“My family have always practiced magic: my grandfather was a witch. He was quite well-known, I believe... in a small way. Anyone can practice magic, after all. It’s just a matter of applying yourself, as with any other skill.”

“It’s a point of view,” Merlin said dubiously. A  _ stupid _ point of view he thought. If anyone could do magic, it would be a different world. “But for practical purposes right now, I am not talking about meditation or channelling or... or horoscopes or whatever, but immediate raw power to work with the shape of the world. Like Taran with the tea. ”

“Oh. No, not really. Nothing so direct.” she said, making ‘direct’ sound somehow like a minor social blunder. “I’m really just an enabler.” 

Something didn’t ring quite true about that, and Merlin almost looked more closely at her then, but Taran, who had been following the satellite news coverage, interrupted. “It’s still coming, Still sticking to the river. Looks like it really is coming all the way up the Thames. That will bring it right into Oxford. Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Oh good,” Arthur said. “I was beginning to think nobody around here had any sense of self-preservation at all. How far has it got now? Slough? And it’s still following the line of the river?”

“Maidenhead.” Taran told him, peering at the map. They’d turned the audio off: Rachel had said she couldn’t bear it any more. “Still following the Thames upstream. Reading will be next. I... I can’t believe it. I mean, London, of course. It’s horrible. But Slough? Reading? Someone lives his life somewhere as dull as Slough, it just seems impossible that it could end so... so weirdly. Is it.. Is it coming for us?” He looked at Merlin and there was fear behind the controlled tension on his face. 

“Probably,” Merlin told him. There was no way to soften it. He looked at Hilda, and at Rachel’s tear-stained face and made a helpless gesture with his mug of tea. “I don’t know. It may be that dissolving the spell has broken your connection to it. He may simply be following the river to the center of the Island of Britain.”

“Can he be stopped?” Hilda asked in a low, serious voice. 

Rachel laughed sharply. “How can anyone know that?”

“Understood, Rachel. But I was asking Merlin, since of all of us, he’s the expert.”

“Not by any magic that I know,” Merlin told her. “But these are...not usual times.” He looked at Arthur, and as if his gaze had drawn them with it, so did everyone else in the room. 

“We can certainly try,” Arthur said. “You rarely know for sure if a battle can be won. Not until afterwards.” He shook his head. “I’m no sorcerer. But I am here to deal with this, and so I must call for aid, and I don’t have time to spend searching for it. Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Taran said, immediately. Rachel hesitated, and then nodded. 

“I will do anything I can,” Hilda offered. 

Arthur leant over the map again. “I’d hoped to raise our standard in time to save Reading, but I fear our enemy will be there before us. And the land is wrong. We’ll have to meet it further West - here, Merlin.” He pointed at the map. 

Merlin leaned over and then looked up at him quizzically. 

“The Dorcic hills? Hoping to replay past triumphs?” He remembered that the other people there were alarmingly young, and explained. “He won a battle there, once. Fifteen hundred years ago, or so, there was a fort....” 

Arthur interrupted him. “More importantly, there’s clear high ground above the river there, and the map shows a good wide band of trees, right along the riverbank. No knights, no foot soldiers, so we’ll have to use what we’ve got. You can’t fight the Sea, you said. But this is far inland. You can’t fight the sea, but a river? You can dam a river. And I remember an old story about the sorcerer Gwydion...” 

“Oh...” Merlin said, the plan abruptly becoming clear to him. “Yes. It’s worth a try. I’ve never done it, but Gwydion ap Dôn did, so I don’t see why I can’t.”

“Exactly. Greatest sorcerer in the world, right? And with him, the witches that called the Sea.” Arthur grinned, and the light of battle in his grey eyes was just the same as it had been all those years ago. Merlin’s stomach lurched and then steadied. This was going to be dangerous. But Arthur was here at last, and this was what he had been waiting for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The niceras appear briefly mentioned in Beowulf : seamonsters that Beowulf fights. I needed an escort for Jormundgandr, and they seemed more or less appropriate in period and location. 
> 
> I would also like you to know that I spent a lot of time working out exactly what internet network infrastructure Jormundgandr was most likely to damage and the impact of that, and which networks were most likely to remain intact. Almost none of this was relevant to the story in the end.


	11. Cad Goddeu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A battle somewhat in the old tradition.

Arthur could remember the Dorcic Hills quite clearly: it seemed only a couple of years ago that he had ridden to the aid of the local king, his ally, who was beset by raiders. 

There had been a little Roman town, quietly falling into untidy neglect, where the roofs were patched and shedding tiles, and pigs rooted in the hazel scrub that crept close to the walls. 

Now it was a prosperous small settlement of solid red and white houses, roofed with tile or thatch and surrounded by neat gardens and orchards. It had lost its walls entirely, and the river had changed its course, too. There was nothing here to recognise; nothing to mourn. 

But that didn’t matter. The important thing was that they had got here in time. 

The Volvo crossed the river on a narrow red-brick bridge, only wide enough for one car to pass at a time. Fortunately, there was nobody going the other way. If the people of Long Wittenham and Little Wittenham had seen their peril and fled, they had already gone. And that was just as well, because by now, the road behind the Volvo was filled with their strange troops, following. 

Arthur glanced down warily at the river as he drove across the bridge, but the water was calm under long shadows, reflecting the evening sun. He was the only one who could be spared to drive, since Merlin’s attention was fixed on his work: building the magic that they needed, and at the same time, watching over Taran, Rachel and Hilda, squashed into the rear seat of the Volvo as they tried to join in with... whatever it was that they were doing. He could hear muttering behind him in more than one language, with an occasional exasperated expletive from Merlin. 

Up ahead, there was a faint, distant droning sound. Arthur put his foot down, and flung the square shape of the Volvo down the lane ahead, ignoring the long summer branches that reached out from the hedges to scratch at its square blue metal sides. 

He reached the point that he had marked on the map, and braked sharply. Still no sign of attack. Good, they had a few minutes left to prepare. He grabbed his sword and jumped from the car. 

Merlin was a step behind him, with his three witches at hand. 

Arthur spared one moment to look back west, the way they had come. The lane behind them and the fields all around it were no longer to be seen. They were covered by a shifting green shadow, full of golden specks from the sunset light that slanted through the tall branches. 

Merlin had called the trees of Oxfordshire out to battle. 

Arthur eyed them uneasily, and took a deep breath. “Ready?” Merlin nodded, without taking his eyes from the vast wood that writhed and creaked behind them. 

Ahead of them was a sight suddenly familiar to Arthur, in all this strangeness of the new world, the well-known shape of the hill fort which long ago had been called Senodunum  rose against the darkening Eastern sky. It was tree-grown at the crest now, but still unexpectedly the same sharp rise that he had ridden up that day, two and fifteen hundred years ago. 

“Come on!” Cavall ran at his heel as he strode up the hill, sword in hand, and behind the wood followed him. 

From the crest of the green hill, you could look down across a wide country: North and East along the river. The sunset was behind him: ahead, the long shadow of the hill stretched into gloom shaded by slate-grey clouds. 

The droning sound was suddenly louder here. In the distance, Arthur could see dragons... no, they weren’t dragons, after all. They were those flying car things. Helicopters, that was the word. Swooping towards... hills? No, vast grey clouds of mist, roiling under the dark clouds that filled the eastern sky. Thin beams of light shone from them, cutting bright lines against the dark mist. Now he could hear the engines, and a sound that he vaguely recognised as gunfire.

And at last, still very far off, a great dark head, that rose from the fog-bank and struck at one of the helicopters like some vast snake. 

Arthur tore his eyes from the enemy and looked instead to his allies. “Right. We need to break the force of the wave. So we need a dam.” 

Merlin looked around briefly from his work and met Arthur’s eyes. His face looked strained. Rachel stepped forward, looking so terrified that Arthur wondered if she would simply run away. 

“Willows, and alders, that’s the plan,” he reminded her, gently, and the other woman, Hilda squeezed her hand encouragingly. Taran stood behind her. He was terrified too, Arthur could see, but doing a much better job of hiding it. 

Rachel looked at him in blank terror. “Which ones were the alders, again?” 

Damn it. How could anyone not know something so simple? And of course, the trees that lined the hilltop and filled the slopes behind them, the trees that Merlin was awakening even now into life, were pines and oaks from the hills, beech and hawthorn from the hedges, not the water-trees that any child should know. 

“Start with the willows, there are plenty of those to begin with” he told her, trying to sound reassuring, and strode off hastily. Sycamore, beech, oak and elder whipped past him. Alder, damn it, there must be plenty of it growing here so close to the river. Ah, there were the round dark leaves at last. 

He cut a sprig and turned back, pushing it into her hands. “Alder!” She looked at it, and nodded, pale face and huge dark eyes. 

Even in that short time, the willows had begun the work. A great tangled mass of roots and branches and leaves now spread across the river below them and the low meadows beyond: massive, yet flexible, permeable. Choking the water course. Already the water in the river was spilling out onto the meadows, and the trees were rooting in the mud, creating a vast living swamp. 

\---

Taran had had a few minutes to check for Punjabi names for trees before they had left Oxford and the university wifi network. The part of his childhood where he had spoken Punjabi had not included very much botany. 

But the words did not seem to be doing much good. He spoke them carefully, looking out over the green hillside to the river, and it did not seem that they made any difference at all. 

‘Relax’ Merlin had said to him, but really, who could relax in this situation? It was impossible. Taran glared at the pale mounds of willow bushes. They obstinately refused to move. He grabbed a long trail of ivy and tugged on it hopelessly. It hung, unmoving. 

Where was Merlin, anyway? He had been bobbing in and out of the trees along the ridge, and just now he was not visible at all. But probably he had even more urgent concerns. So, think. Relax. Simplify. Maybe it wasn’t the Punjabi that was essential. Maybe it was the language of his childhood. 

He released the ivy trail, and looked at it thoughtfully. “Tangle,” he suggested to it, reaching for words he had known as a small boy. “Go that way! Be knots. Tangle! ” 

And the ivy, as if it could hear, slipped to the ground and began to move, carrying a whole line of bushy, narrow-leaved willow-trees behind it, as if they were being towed. 

“Tangle!” Taran suggested again, more confidently this time, and ivy and willow joined the wall of trees that Rachel was building, staring astonished as the wood wove under her hands. Taran’s ivy began to knot flexible stems and long roots around them, strengthening the barrier. It stretched all the way across the river now and far up the other side of the wide river-valley into the blue evening distance. 

\----

Merlin came out of the trees towards Arthur, gesturing back at the waking wood “That’s your lot,” he shouted over the sound of roots tearing earth, of trunks that were never designed to walk, twisting into stumping movement. “That’s everything I can wake up, awake. You tell them what to do, I’ll work on the dam.” 

“How do I tell them what to do?” Arthur shouted back, glancing briefly away from the oncoming clouds of fog. He could hear a deep thrumming sound now, deeper than any river-noise he had ever heard: that must be the sound of the great wave approaching. Cavall pressed himself to Arthur’s leg, his eyes wide and white at the edges. 

Merlin looked back over his shoulder, a wary expression on his face. There behind him, emerging from the thrashing trees, were five looming ... things. They looked almost like elm-trees, except that somehow, they were not quite there. But if you looked at one of them then the others that were not quite in your line of sight looked almost like huge heavily-muscled women. 

They did not creak painfully and drop twigs and leaves like the walking trees. They were swift and dark and terribly silent, but there was a golden glow about them that was more than just the sunset glancing through branches. “These are the Five Sisters,” Merlin said, his voice raised over the rustling and creaking of the walking trees. “They’ve agreed to act as your captains.” 

“Right. Good luck!” Arthur said, trying not to think about how unwise it was to lead men - or, well, whatever these things were - into battle on a few moments acquaintance. 

“And good luck to you too,” Merlin said, grinning like a boy in the last red light of the day. 

“What are you so happy about?” Arthur asked him, irritated. This could all go so very wrong, so fast. 

“Oh, nothing. It’s just I’ve waited for this so long. Now it’s finally happening!”

“Well, I’m glad someone’s enjoying it.” Arthur said. “I’d like it all over with, myself.”

“Oh, don’t be so grumpy. It’s a battle, you love battles.”

“A magical battle! That’s completely different!”

“You’ve been in lots of magical battles. This time you know it, that’s all.”

“Oh... Just get on with building that dam. If it doesn’t hold we don’t have a hope.”

Merlin nodded and strode quickly away, still grinning, damn him. 

Quickly, Arthur set out his troops : three Sisters, each commanding a regiment of creaking forest-trees, sent to wade the river and take their stand on the low hills to the north of the river, downstream of the dam. 

The remaining two Sisters, and himself, Cavall still sticking to his heel, he positioned south of the river, with the rest of the wood spread out like the arms of the crescent moon, standing on the lower slopes of the hillside. He intended to ensure that as few as possible of the red beasts, the savage niceras, would survive this engagement. 

There was no knowing what Jörmungandr would do, when he came to the dam, but the niceras at least were a foe that Arthur could understand. A foe understood was one that could be defeated. 

Now the roaring sound of the great wave could clearly be heard, and above it, the regular thumping of the helicopters, the sharp bursts of machine-gun fire. Closer at hand,rooks wheeling overheard against the clouds flushed sunset red were cawing in alarm.

Arthur had hoped he would be able to see his adversary by now, but ahead of the wave came mist, creeping through the trees and obscuring the muddy trampled ground. The sun had set behind the hill. The afterglow from the west where the sky was still clear was not enough to see through the tree shadows and the fog. 

There was a sudden thrashing movement among the trees, down the hill from where Arthur stood, and the red monsters were upon them.

The niceras were stronger than the trees. Their great jaws and muscled, clawed front legs tore through wood and bark, ripped the trees to shreds. But the trees fought with a desperate ferocity that amazed Arthur, grabbing, tangling, and shoving. They went on fighting even when the pale wood was showing and huge branches were broken and trailing. Jagged spikes of wood flew like spears, and Arthur took a step back, sword in hand, to avoid being spitted himself. Cavall, wide-eyed, retreated on his swift legs, growling, and Arthur spared a moment to quiet him. 

And then the wave hit the dam. A great smash of sound and the trees creaking and groaning under the impact. But so far as Arthur could see in the failing light, the dam held. Where was Jörmungandr? 

The helicopters were overhead now, lights blazing, firing their guns. Arthur hoped that they knew what they were firing at, and that they would be pointing their strange weapons well away from him. 

He whirled to meet the attack of a great red monster that came bounding towards him, and caught it cleanly on the back of the neck. One more down, but still no sign of the serpent. He waved the Sisters down the hill, and there below him and far too close in the surging water was the great scaled head of Jörmungandr himself, longer than a train and with considerably more teeth. 

No point in delay. Arthur dodged another niceras, hefted his sword, and ran. 

Jörmungandr was rearing up, searching. For Merlin, no doubt. He was the obvious threat: the great sorcerer who had called the forest to aid him, not the insignificant man with a spike of metal in his hand. Where  _ was _ Merlin, anyway? 

The sound of helicopters filled the air as Arthur ran, until Jörmungandr flicked his head almost casually sideways, as if troubled by gadflies, and the nearer helicopter went crashing down. The other leapt higher, out of reach of the mighty jaws. Somewhere above him a brilliant light blazed against the dark sky and Arthur looked away hastily before he lost his night-vision : presumably that was Merlin, doing his part. 

He came to the roiling water, and looked blankly at the base of the massive neck as it lunged towards the dam, sending a stinking wave surging towards him across the twisted muddy roots, barely visible in the darkness. 

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! You! Worm! Down here!” No response. But why would Jörmungandr speak modern English? He switched to the language of the first Saxons. “Wormson Nithing! Cowardly shit, come down here and face me!”

That got a reaction. The twisting fury of the water calmed. If there were nicoras still moving, Arthur could not see them, only the darkness and the faint light on the water as the ripples ran out and stilled.

Then with a sudden fierce twisting movement, water splashed in darkness, soaking him, and then before him a huge eye opened. 

He did not wait for the mouth to follow. He hacked at the eye savagely, both hands on the sword, expecting death to follow swiftly. 

But instead there was a vast hiss, and the eye closed abruptly, almost wrenching his sword from his hand. A huge surge of water that knocked Arthur from his feet and left him scrabbling for a hold on the muddy hillside. Cavall, who had, somehow, survived all this, pushed a long nose into his face. When Arthur had staggered back again to his feet, to see the twigs and branches strewn everywhere and the river-mud spread thick over the meadows, glinting in the thin moonlight, Jörmungandr was gone. 

He was still peering into the gloom when Merlin appeared, and came with long sliding steps down the hillside, a tall Sister looming by his side with long rents torn in her bark like skin. He was glowing slightly, Arthur noticed, and realised that the glow did not trouble him. It seemed a healthy sort of glow, as such things went, and it made it easier for Arthur to see where he was putting his feet in the gloom. “What happened?” Merlin asked urgently. 

Arthur shrugged in bafflement. He looked up “I don’t know. I hit it.”

“You _ hit  _ him?” Merlin looked alarmed and looked Arthur up and down as if he were checking for limbs missing that he might previously not have noticed. 

“It was a battle, wasn’t that the point?” Arthur swatted him lightly on the shoulder to make the point. “Anyway, it just hissed at me and turned tail. I have no idea why. My sword to its eye must have been like being hit with a match-stick, for a thing that size.”

Merlin looked south and west into darkness. “I wonder how far he went.” 

“I’m sure we’ll find out. I’m more worried about whether he’ll come back. Do we have any injuries?” He looked around at the battered trees and the remains of the dam, which had started to come apart now that Merlin was, presumably, no longer holding it in place. “Any human injuries?” Cavall whined, and Arthur put a spare hand on his head. 

“They’re exhausted. I told them to sit down for a bit. They’re not used to this sort of thing.” 

“Nor am I. Is anyone?” 

Merlin shrugged. Perhaps he was, after all these years. 

Arthur looked around in light of the faint glow that came from Merlin, at broken branches and trailing strips of bark. “Is there anything that can be done for the trees?”

The Sister who looked almost, but not quite, like an elm tree drew herself up to an even more impressive height. “We will see to the trees,” she promised, in a voice like the creaking of branches in a strong wind. It was an uncomfortable sound, and Arthur suddenly felt glad that Merlin was there beside him, looking as comfortingly ordinary as Merlin usually did. Except for the glowing, obviously. 

Merlin was far from ordinary, really, and had waited an astoundingly long time for this, and endured who knows what through the centuries, and yet endured, and still was enduring, and had for some reason, chosen this. “Are  _ you _ all right?” he asked. 

“A bit tired,” Merlin admitted with a brief flash of a grin. “But not hurt, thanks for asking. You?” 

“Fine.” 

“Wound not troubling you?” 

“Not at all,” Arthur said breezily. “Are you meant to be glowing?”

Merlin looked down at his hands in surprise that was almost comical. “Whoops,” he said, and the light vanished. 

“Light up again,” Arthur suggested. “It’s easier to see where we’re going.” 

“Oh.” Merlin looked sideways at him, in the glow that had begun to shine from him softly again. “All right then.” 

****

They came together by the car for what was probably a post-battle council, though it was not much like any council that Arthur had ever attended before. Taran distributed tea from a large thermos flask, and Hilda put a blanket around Rachel’s thin shoulders, while Cavall leaped into the car with the air of a dog that had found a safe refuge in a world gone mad. The remaining three Sisters stood looming over them, as if they were meeting in a grove, their arms— branches — whatever they were — wrapped around one another’s shoulders. 

They were grieving. One of the Sisters had been lost to the niceras, and one torn apart by the serpent himself. So perhaps it was like all the other after-battle councils, after all. 

“I think it’s you,” Merlin said frowning at him.

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you are King Arthur Pendragon. Think about it. I have power, but I use words to shape it. The words and the action become one, and that makes something happen. _Bærne_ _upastige draca”_

A flame burst out of nowhere and formed into the shape of a dragon, shimmering golden for a moment, and then vanished as Merlin impatiently dismissed it with the wave of a hand. 

“Show-off,” Rachel said and laughed, as if all the tension had drained out of the world at the sight of the dragon's wings. 

Merlin grinned at her. “But my point is that it isn’t just the power: it’s the words. The words of the original spell shaped the form. We tend to say spells using words that are not just everyday words, because it’s kind of inconvenient to just say the word  _ walk _ with the wrong emphasis and then find the furniture all wandering away...”

“Is that possible?” Arthur said with some scepticism. 

“Unlikely, but possible. Words shape magic, magic takes form and expression and authority from the words used to call it, to... describe it. Even to think it. You can make magic without saying words, but you have to use something as a channel; words, dance, an image, a song...”

“And this is relevant, how?” Arthur enquired, since he knew that Merlin was entirely capable of continuing in this vein for some time without ever coming to the point.

Merlin rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner, as if this was supposed to be obvious. “Well, who has had more words woven about them than you?” he said. “Words, paintings, stories. Movies and television too, I suppose, these last hundred years or so.”

“So what?”

“I told you. They’ve forgotten, whoever it was,  Aurelius Concennus. Lennocus of Elmet, Constantine. Hell, most of them have forgotten old King George, and he only died in 1952! But they know  _ you _ . They have been telling stories about you for over a thousand years. So when you stand against the power of the Sea, using the form it took in ancient words, it paid attention.” 

“Are you really suggesting that what is known in narrative terms as the ‘power of the protagonist’ can be _weaponised?_ ” Hilda enquired, one delicately shaped eyebrow raised. 

“I have no idea what that means.” Merlin glared at her briefly and then when she seemed not particularly shaken by this, turned back to Arthur. “But what I’m saying is that enchantment is power, and words shape enchantment, and stories are made of _ lots _ of words. And that’s why Jörmungandr ran from you.”

“Because of stories,” Arthur said, sceptical. 

“Because of stories.” 

“Does it matter why it worked, as long as it did?” Hilda wondered. 

Taran, lifted his weary head. “I think it does,” he said. “Surely that must inform what happens next.”

Merlin looked from him to Arthur and nodded. 

Arthur rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “So that’s what must happen next? I have to go after it.” 

There was an awkward silence, in which Merlin seemed to be thinking of six dozen objections and was unable to decide which to voice first, and then the elm-Sister spoke, in her creaking, inhuman voice. “Yes. The king must hunt it down and kill it.” And it said something about the aftermath of battle that Arthur did not even notice at the time that nobody, including himself, said ‘which king?’ 

Rachel, dark smudges under her eyes making them look huge and sad in the dim light, said “But not tonight? Surely...”

Arthur shook his head. “Not tonight. Even if any of us were ready for another battle right away, we don’t know where the enemy has gone. Can’t attack without intelligence. 

“Back to Oxford then?” Taran heaved himself wearily to his feet. 

“Back to Oxford,” Arthur agreed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elm-sisters once existed, and belong more or less where I have put them, if only as trees and a story, though they are a long time vanished and so in this story, I think they are a kind of ghost, though clearly, one of power. The actual battle takes place at Wittenham Clumps. 
> 
> I know that this tree-battle is going to suggest Ents to most people! But the inspiration (honestly!) for this chapter is The Battle of the Trees, a medieval Welsh poem preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as the Book of Taliesin, where Gwydion fab Dôn animates trees to be his army. (I'm pretty sure that Tolkien must have read this too, for all the disapproval of the Mabinogion expressed in his letters.)
> 
> I've tried really hard to get ahead of myself, but the last three chapters are still in draft form at the mo. I hope I will be able to keep up with Monday postings, but please forgive me if I miss a week or two at this point!


	12. Kindly do not Nuke Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meetings, tea, a certain amount of constitutional law, a dragon and destiny. 
> 
> Thanks again to raiyana for stepping in to beta this when I had reached the point where I couldn't decide if it made any sense at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm truly sorry this has taken so long to write. I thought I could meet the schedule I set for myself and... I didn't. And I think I've given up hope of managing a weekly chapter published, I'm afraid. But this story WILL be finished, I promise!

At RAF Brize Norton, the largest Royal Airforce station in the UK, a group of the senior staff were sitting in a briefing room. Group Captain Gould and his senior staff had been staring for what had probably been no more than half an hour, but felt like about a hundred years at screens on which a scenario never thought of or trained for were unfolding. 

Satellite images of central London: ancient stone buildings that had survived even the Blitz smashed. The twisted wrecks of tall glass-clad buildings, the toppling remnants of what had been red-brick converted warehouses and black-timbered houses merged together into chaos. 

South of the river in Battersea and Lambeth, several fires were raging, largely uninterrupted by the few fire-engines that had been able to find a way through the wreckage and the traffic. Crowds of people on foot were huddled around the train stations: the trains on that side of the river were, somehow, still moving, but overwhelmed by the unexpected numbers. Even as they watched, a group of water-monsters came galloping, with that strange lopsided gait, down into the crowd around Battersea Park railway station. The view was too distant to see any faces: as if they were a single tormented body, the crowd contracted away from the monsters, then stretched out long agonised tentacles as people began to run away on foot. 

“We could get in to land at Clapham Common,” Gould said, very quietly. “But we don’t have enough transports to move that number of people.” 

“Get the Typhoons in,” someone suggested. 

“Into London?” someone else protested. “A civilian population of millions? And..our own people?”

They all understood the suggestion, and what it implied. Typhoons — more formally, Eurofighter Typhoons — were not transports, but fighters, adapted for air-to-ground strikes using missiles. They would kill the invading beasts, despite their remarkable speed and resilience, but the collateral damage would be extreme. 

“We can’t.” Lee’s voice was flat with shock, and his face looked almost green. “Think how many people there are in London. We wouldn't have a hope of keeping casualties within reasonable limits.” 

Gould shook his head, and took the decision, since it must be done, and there was nobody else left to take it for him. “I think we have to. I can't see another choice. Edwards, get onto Lossiemouth and have them arrange a strike."

"I want my objection noted," Lee said, but he sounded half-defeated already. 

"Very well.  I want the Typhoons at Coningsby in reserve for an attack on Hull and Liverpool, if one comes. But tell Lossiemouth, they must stay strictly south of the Thames. I don’t want anyone going near... that thing again. Not yet.” 

Gould waved a hand at the other set of screens, showing London north of the river. The enemy was coiled around the ruins of Westminster and Buckingham Palace, with a great loop of the thing’s... neck? Body? Trailing through Hyde Park into the Serpentine and back to the river. The head was huge enough, but the body, long out of any proportion to it, was gigantic beyond words. It was impossible to say even how long it might be, since the back of it trailed away into the murky water of the Thames, where, for all they knew, it might reach out to sea. It had already fully demonstrated that attack from the air would be fatal.

To the left, a screen showed footage, taken with infrared cameras from the helicopter that had survived, of the battle at the river where the snake had been turned back by some method that Gould was trying hard not to think of as ‘magic’. 

The door opened and the commander of 47 Squadron came in. “Did you get them all out?” Gould demanded, before he could speak. 

The other man nodded, and Gould felt a sickening rush of relief. 47 Squadron had been tasked with evacuating the families of RAF Benson, near the Thames. “Thank god for small mercies.” 

“We’re settling them into temporary accommodation now. The... _ that _ .” he pointed at the image of Jörmungandr coiled on London, “didn’t actually come right into Benson, but the pig-monster things were keeping them pretty busy by the time we got there. ”

“Right. But the pig-monsters on their own would be manageable... eventually. It’s  _ that _ we have to deal with.”

“Is there any word from London?” 

Gould shook his head wearily. “Nor from Andover. Something’s happened to Army HQ. Comms are down, the phones are out and from what we can see from the air, the place is now basically just a big pond. Looks deep. God knows what’s down there. No sign of radioactivity, but we’re not going near it until we have to. That leaves us and the Navy, and the Navy have their hands full with the pig-monsters on the coast. So, us. And then there’s this. ”

He pointed to the leftmost screen,where Arthur could be seen, a tiny bright figure beside towering darkness; in his hand, a sword that seemed impossibly small and frail. And there before him, the massive head pulled back sharply, in obvious reaction to his blow, and turned, and fled. 

“Who  _ is  _ that?” the 47 Squadron commander demanded, eyes wide in shock. 

“That’s what we’ve just been discussing. He went off with some others in a car towards Oxford,” Gould said frowning. 

“You want us to send out a team to bring him in?” asked Murray . 

Gould shook his head. “No. This, whatever this is,” he waved expressively at the screens, “Is the only effective counter that we’ve seen to this threat, and we have no idea who that man is... who any of them are. If he can shoo that snake away like that, I’m not prepared to risk demanding a meeting on my terms. I’m going over there to speak to him myself.”

******

  
  


Oxfordshire seemed to have noticed now that it was under threat. The roads south of the city were slow with cars grinding their way northward, lines of headlights stretching out of sight behind the Volvo. The city itself, once they reached the stone-built streets, had fewer cars, but the wide pavements under the pale streetlamps were busy with people, gathering in worried knots or hurrying on foot. 

Merlin drove towards Taran’s office, without really thinking about it, trying not to yawn. It had been a good many years since he had last thrown magic around like that, calling on every last drop of power, everything he had learned down the long grinding years since first he had come to Camelot. 

But threading through the city centre, he found he had to brake, surprised. In the middle of the broad roadway of St Giles, an alarmingly military-looking grey helicopter had just come to ground in the space between roadside trees and flower-bedecked lamp-posts. In the dusk on the other side of the road, a double-decker bus had come to a halt in confusion. 

A group of serious-looking men in blue-grey uniforms with too much braid on them jumped down from the helicopter and strode purposefully towards the car. 

“Looks like more talking before we get a chance to sleep,” he said generally to Arthur and the slumped heap of exhausted sorcerers. “I vote we hold out for a cup of tea first, shall we?” 

“Coffee,” Rachel said firmly, pulling herself upright with an effort. “Coffee or I’m seriously going to start turning people into rabbits. If I can work out how, and don’t just fall over.” 

Merlin grinned at her. “Ah, the lure of dark sorcery. That didn’t take long.”

Rachel gave him a look that was less amused than simply exhausted, and opened the door. 

******

“Arthur Pendragon,” Gould said, hoping that it would sound more probable the second time he said it. 

“That’s me,” someone that he was definitely not thinking of as King Arthur replied, with a smile that somehow acknowledged the absurdity without in any way giving in to it. “The Once and Future King, I am called in prophesies, so Merlin tells me.” 

“And you fought...that.”

“Jörmungandr, yes.”

“With a  _ sword _ .”

Not-king-Arthur smiled again, engagingly. “Seems unlikely, I know. Though not alone: Merlin, Rachel, Taran and Hilda were in the battle too, waking the powers of the forests. I was surprised myself when he turned tail and fled. Pleased, of course.” 

Gould blinked at him. He felt keenly conscious that he was probably, somehow, the senior officer of the RAF, a position that he had never expected or wanted, in a country suddenly at war against an completely unforeseen enemy. 

There were probably decisions he should be making right at this moment, orders he should be receiving from... somewhere. At least some sort of rough guideline as to whether attack, evacuation or food supplies should be prioritised. He had always considered himself a man of initiative, annoyingly restrained by the requirements of modern bureaucracy. 

Yet just now, the idea of making a report seemed oddly attractive, because that would mean there was someone to report  _ to _ . It was really unfair that he should have to deal with legendary monarchs on top of everything else. 

A female voice, vaguely familiar, spoke. “Group Captain  _ James _ Gould, wasn’t it? We met last year, I think, at the University Air Squadron event at Falklands House?”

Gould blinked again. Oh yes, she was some university woman. Presumably this was her home turf, but he was damned if he was going to be embarrassed about having forgotten her name. 

“Hilda Chapman,” she reminded him with a sharp and somewhat artificial smile. “Now, if I may suggest, we have all had something of a tiring day, and even Arthur Pendragon must be allowed a hot drink from time to time. I see that despite all adversity, the Lamb and Flag is open.” 

*****

  
  


There were people in the Lamb and Flag pub, though they were mostly moving slowly, or staring into their pints, glassy-eyed and shocked. Gould’s adjutant hurried in ahead of him, and began shooing them out of the back room. 

Merlin leant his arms heavily on the bar and fixed the barman with a determined stare. “Tea.” he demanded. “Hot tea with sugar, please. Lots of it. Oh, and some coffee.” 

The person standing next to him, a tall thin man with a worn face, impressive eyebrows and a great puff of white hair on his old head nodded sympathetically. “A hard day?” 

“Harder than you can imagine,” Merlin assured him. 

“Come on Merlin,” Arthur said bracingly, leaning on the bar next to him. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of worse days. We won that battle fair and square... if not yet the war.”

“We are all of us having hard days,” the old man said and took a sip from his whisky-glass. “London broken. Parliament fallen and the monarchy ended, and what is left in the ruins? I have spend most of my life defending Britain’s ancient traditions and her laws, and now here at the end it’s all for nothing. All those books and lectures, years of research, and all entirely pointless now.”

“Perhaps you should have chosen a different path then.” Arthur said rather sharply. He shook his head. “Sorry. That was... I’m tired. I apologise.”

“I was wondering just that same thing,” the old man told him,and swirled the whisky in his glass. “At the end of the world, constitutional law no longer appears to be a matter of urgency. But who could have foreseen this?”

“No-one could,” Merlin said. The barman had reappeared with a large teapot, and the sight was a cheering one. “I certainly had no idea what was coming, and I’m a sorcerer. Over a thousand years of working magic, and this still caught me on the hop.”

The old man blinked in some astonishment. “A _ sorcerer _ ?” 

“Merlin. Best sorcerer in the world,” Arthur informed him. “You should have seen him summoning the trees to defend the city, earlier. I’ve never seen anything like it. A whole forest, walking.” 

“ _ Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill _   
_ Shall come against him _ ?  
A walking forest is hardly the most difficult thing to believe that has happened this week. Or even today. But... Merlin. Like Merlin the enchanter, from  __ The Sword in the Stone ? I used to love that book when I was a child.” 

“Not precisely...” Merlin said and then gave up. “Arthur Pendragon,” he said, pointing, and then back at himself. “If you can cope with his name, you should be able to manage mine.”

The old man went very still, and his eyes went from face to face. “Perhaps I should,” he said after a long pause. “My name, then, is Vernon Bogdanor.”

Arthur nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Master Bogdanor. As I said, this is Merlin. Best sorcerer in the world.” Merlin could not stop himself grinning at that. “Don’t let it go to your head,” Arthur advised him. “Magic is a terrible idea most of the time. It’s just that right now, I have to admit that every other option is  _ so much worse _ .”

“I knew you’d like it if you gave it a chance,” Merlin told him, still grinning. He glanced over at the back room of the pub, and realised that the vaguely warm feeling on his right ear was probably caused by Hilda’s pointed glare. He picked up the tray with the giant teapot on it. “Excuse us, Mr Bogdanor. Arthur, I think they’re waiting for us.” 

*****

“I  _ can’t _ explain it,” Merlin said for the third time. He was starting to feel flustered. Being interrogated by steely-eyed military men about his magic was something that he had always gone out of his way to avoid. “You don’t know the right words, and even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to use them. But it wasn’t a spell that turned Jörmungandr back, anyway. It was  _ him _ .”

Irresistibly, all eyes turned to Arthur, who seemed entirely untroubled by them. After a lifetime of being stared at, he probably barely noticed it. 

“And you’re quite sure,” Gould asked him, frowning dauntingly, “that you didn’t do anything... any magic?”

“Not one of my talents,” Arthur told him with a grimace. “Nor would I want it to be. But Merlin has a theory...” 

“Yes, well,” Merlin said hastily. The idea of explaining the power of belief and destiny to these practical sceptical men seemed unlikely to be successful, even if it was Arthur who explained it to them. “The conclusion we came to is that it has to be Arthur. There’s no point sending conventional troops against a magical enemy of such power.”

“So ideally, we’d like you to concentrate on supplies and keeping the people safe,” Arthur agreed, “And while you do that, I and Merlin will work on the enemy.”

“Now hang on a minute!” Gould exploded. “You want us to just... ignore the main problem? I don’t think you realise the scale of what’s going on here! This is an international issue, I’ve got half the UK ambassadors around the world on hold back at the base, and then there’s the UN Security council. For the armed forces to simply staying out of it on the word of some... anyway, that isn’t an option. I have to be very clear about that.”

“You can be clear about it to Jörmungandr if you must,” Arthur said wearily. “But he is not an army, or a missile, or a warship. How many men have you lost to him already?” 

Gould let out a wordless noise: one part despair, and two parts frustration. “We don’t know yet. We should have an estimate by the morning.” 

Arthur lifted an eyebrow. “It must, surely, be thousands. Do you think the... United Nations will be able to help you against him? Tell me, how many sorcerers do they have to hand?”

Gould put a hand over his face and did not reply. 

One of the other officers put in, “We can hardly just ignore the U.N. They aren’t going to be satisfied with  _ mythology _ .”

“A myth is exactly what you’re facing,” Merlin pointed out, taking a mouthful of blessedly hot sweet tea and resisting the temptation to simply throw all these annoying airmen into a magical sleep, so that he and Arthur could get on with things properly. Arthur seemed to pick up the thought, and gave him a sideways look and a brief shake of the head. 

“It seems to me that part of the issue here is that neither Mr Pendragon nor Mr Emrys have any military or command position,” Hilda said, unexpectedly, her voice clear and sharp as glass. 

Technically, this was not entirely correct, since Merlin was still, so far as he knew, listed as a lance-corporal in the Home Guard, but he let it pass. “Is that really important?”

“I think so. It’s a good point,” Arthur said. He looked at Gould. “That would make your position more tenable, and allow me to speak directly with our allies. And as it happens, I have a plan. There is a great expert in these matters just over there, in the next room. I suggest we call him in.”

*****

After that, there was a certain amount of discussion of the kind that Merlin found tedious in the extreme. He went to get more tea, and then settled himself next to Rachel and Taran. Rachel, hands wrapped around a second cup of coffee, was well enough, and gave him a tentative smile that had the confidence of growing power behind it. The magic she had not known she had was forming around her now, visible if you knew what to look for, as if she were a knight who was growing used to sword and armour. 

But Taran was not so well off: he had strained his smaller talent to the limit in the battle, and now he was quiet, his eyes unfocussed, responding monosyllabically if he spoke at all. Merlin began to quietly say a spell to ease the strain and lend him strength: Merlin was tired, too, but he had far more resource to spare. What Taran really needed was to sleep, but this would help too. Outside the pub windows, evening was darkening into night. 

When he had finished the spell, with Rachel observing with interest, he found that the old man, Bogdanor was speaking. “There is a clear precedent for creating a king by invitation. William of Orange was offered the position that way. But an unwritten constitution such as that of the United Kingdom cannot be simply made up. There are laws, and conventions. And in the absence of any member of either House of Parliament... they can’t  _ all _ be... Surely there were a few at home sick or unavoidably detained.”

“We are  _ extremely _ short of time,” Gould pointed out, one fist on the table, clenched.

“I know,” Bogdanor said and sighed. “But you asked me how a legendary king could have a place in the structure of a modern state that would not be simply an emergency military appointment.”

“Yes. I think that is important,” Arthur said, grey eyes sharp and present. “From all that I have read and heard of this time and the long past of this land, the past that was my future. But time is very short. Consider the matter of tradition and convention carefully, and most of all,  _ quickly _ .”

Bogdanor looked down at his hands. 

“You mean  _ Rexque Futurus _ ,” Rachel said suddenly, from the corner next to Merlin, and then stuttered a little as everyone turned to her. “Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus, like in Malory. The future king. But that’s just a story.” 

“Like in the Sword in the Stone,” Bogdanor added. 

“My story,” Arthur agreed. “My fate; my destiny. Not one I went looking for, but it seems that I have a duty, and not a choice.” 

“But we can’t just...” 

They were interrupted by a cry older than any spire in the ancient city: a cry that echoed across moonlit Oxford like the sound of a bronze trumpet. There was danger in that cry, but Merlin found himself involuntarily smiling at the sound of it. He got to his feet slowly. It had been a very long day. “I think some more people have turned up to the meeting. I don’t think all of them will fit in this pub.” 

*****

Outside the Lamb and Flag, looking south along the moonlit and now largely empty expanse of St Giles, high above the trees that lined the broad road, vast wings wheeled, catching the silvery light. The breath caught in Merlin’s throat at the sight of it, the savage beauty of a dragon in flight. 

Arthur slapped him on the shoulder. “What does it want?” 

“No idea.” Remembering that he had sworn to protect the freedom of dragons, Merlin let the spell that had come half-formed into his mind go. Instead, he whistled shrilly and waved his arms. 

The dragon turned, magnificent above the lines of trees and tall roofs, and then plummeted all at once, swift and silent as an owl, to come to rest not far from the helicopter in the middle of the wide moonlit street. 

There was a stunned silence, broken by the sound of loud Welsh cursing. The dragon moved one vast clawed foot, and a human figure appeared. 

“Good evening, Owen,” Arthur said, and then looking up said to the Dragon, “And good evening to you too, Dragon.” He lifted a hand in formal salute, as if greeting a fellow-monarch, and in reply, the dragon raised her huge head and huffed a breath of flame, brilliant against the blue evening shadows. 

Owen shook his curly head, looked up at the dragon, and shuddered. “I have never been so glad to have two feet on the ground.” 

“Dragon-riding not to your taste?” Merlin asked, looking admiringly up at the golden eyes that were considering him closely. 

“Riding? No. She’d not let anyone do that. Anyway, have you seen the spines on their backs? You’d have to have a crotch of hardened steel,” Owen told him, moving cautiously away from the dragon. 

“It’s not that bad,” Merlin assured him. “Or perhaps it depends on the dragon.”

“I wouldn’t want to risk asking. She carried me in her hand. That was quite terrifying enough, I can tell you. All the way here I was thinking, what if she forgets and drops me? What a way to go that would be! But I made it. I told her, when she came to me, I’d drive over and meet her there, but she wouldn’t have it. Said she needed a translator.” 

The dragon rumbled agreement. Rachel’s tired face was shining with a kind of terrified glee as she stared, though Hilda, half in shadow next to her, had a politely interested expression on her face as if she was being shown, perhaps, a new type of carnation. 

“I’m not a good enough translator?” Merlin demanded, slightly hurt. 

“Apparently she likes me,” Owen said wryly, and the dragon rumbled again. “She does understand pretty much everything we say in English,” he added hastily. “I wouldn’t underestimate her.”

Gould and his various officers had been staring in silent shock. They must surely already know about the dragons: they had been headline news for months, but the reality of a live dragon in front of you was very different to a video clip. 

But at that, Gould gave a harsh laugh. “Never underestimate a live dragon?” he asked, incomprehensibly. “I try not to. Why is... she here?”

“Merlin sent her a message, on behalf of Arthur Pendragon.” Owen said. “Her people are grateful for the help they have had with settling peacefully in Wales. She’s come to help.”

“Thank you for coming so swiftly,” Arthur said, addressing both the dragon and Owen together. “We have fought a hard battle here today already, and our enemy was thrown back, but not defeated. I can use all the allies I can find.” He went on to introduce each person present by name, and summarise the debate so far. Merlin began to consider how soon he could get away with slipping away back inside to see how Taran was doing. 

“So you need to resolve this question of who will lead the country against the big monster, do you?” Owen said, and grinned wolfishly. “Tell me, Group Captain, have you ever negotiated with a dragon? It’s an education, I assure you.” 

*****

In a palatial video-conferencing room within the Oxford University Saïd Business School the next morning, Arthur took a deep breath. He was out of his time, and out of his depth in so very many ways. And yet, some things were the same. People’s ideas changed, but underneath them all, they were still people.

The screens were waking into life, voices from very far away were speaking. Now they were speaking to him.

“Who are you? Do you have authorisation to speak on behalf of the UK?”

Owen looked calmly at the screen. “Of course he does,” he said. “He’s King Arthur Pendragon: his job is to take over in the event of extreme emergency when the civil authority is otherwise disabled, which is defined in the constitution of the UK as ‘hour of greatest need’. Didn’t you know that? It’s hardly a secret.”

A garbled sound came from the speaker. Someone else said in a German accent. “It was not in the briefing, unfortunately.”

“Not to worry,” Arthur said breezily. The key here would be confidence. Be confident, and the rest would follow. “I’m here now, so you can deal with me. I can assure you that there are plans underway to deal with our little... infestation.”

“Infestation?” an incredulous American voice said. “It’s wiped out your capital city, man!”

“It’s done a good deal of damage, obviously,” Arthur told her. “We’re going to be rebuilding for some time, once the problem has been dealt with. But it  _ will _ be dealt with, I can assure you of that.” 

“What assurances can you offer, under the circumstances?” It was a French voice this time. “If you had the ability to stop it, you most surely would already have done so!” 

“It took us all by surprise,” Arthur explained.  _ Confidence. _ “Otherwise we would have stopped it sooner. But we have a plan, and I can assure you all that the Isle of Britain... I mean, the UK, has no need of military assistance at present.”

Owen said “We would welcome aid in terms of food and medical assistance. Our supply-lines have been disrupted and we have a lot of people homeless. I suggest... ”

“It will be on our coast next,” the French voice said angrily. “And how can we possibly rely on you to deal with this menace, when your senior command has been wiped out?”

“I have the matter well in hand.” Arthur said, and let a glint of steel into his voice. “This is not a conventional threat. It’s a power of dark magic from a much earlier time; nuclear intervention is unlikely to be effective.” He blessed Owen silently for having briefed him with the phrase ‘nuclear intervention’. 

“A dark magic,” another voice said. He could not identify the accent this time, but it sounded very unhappy. “You really expect us to believe that?” 

Arthur widened his eyes and directed a look at the camera: the kind of look that had left seasoned knights flushing like embarrassed boys. “What would you call it? It is a giant serpent of hitherto unknown kind, that was accompanied by a swarm of unknown beasts, that overcame London and the armed hosts of the United Kingdom with barely a struggle. The... helicopter gunships... had little impact upon it. Yet, I met it with Merlin and a few other of our English sorcerers, and threw it back with the aid of Powers of the Land. That at least should tell you that this is no natural creature of the Sea. I intend now to face it again with the sword Excalibur and Merlin beside me, and the dragons of this land have agreed to aid me. ” 

“And you are King Arthur. And this is something the British authorities have sanctioned is it?” The voice sounded not so much incredulous as as if it were suppressing panic. 

“Yes indeed,” Owen put in cheerfully. “The English Parliament being out of action for the time being, you understand, but the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments have voted an emergency measure. We do have someone phoning around the local councils of England to ask them to add their approval, but I am afraid that will probably take some time, given the ... general disruption. And so as I say, supplies of food and medical assistance would be most welcome.”

“It would,” Arthur added helpfully, “improve our chances of getting back on our feet and ready to assist, before destiny takes a turn with any of your lands.” 

There was an alarmed silence, and then everyone started shouting at once. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vernon Bogdanor really is a real person and an expert in the UK constitution at Oxford. And the UK doesn't have a written constitution, in the normal sense. It has a bunch of laws, traditions and customs that together are described as an 'unwritten' constitution. This is supposed to give the advantage of flexibility, which is certainly the case here, though not in exactly the way that my A Level politics tutor may have foreseen all those many years ago.


End file.
